


A New Day

by Acacia_Mac



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Molestation, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 44,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4702223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acacia_Mac/pseuds/Acacia_Mac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story will be split up into two parts.  Part one is Justin's POV and the second Brian's.  Both will tell basically the same events, plus some that are not shared by the other man.<br/>This is set after the season 2 finale.</p><p>The program stated in this fic is a real program that I found on the internet.<br/>This fic will contain subject matters that may NOT be suitable for some people.<br/>Contains talk about Child Abuse and Child Molestation</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic will contain subject matters that may NOT be suitable for some people.  
> Contains talk about Child Abuse and Child Molestation
> 
> Yep Another old one from long ago

  
Finding My Way  
By Acacia

_ Justin's POV of A New Day Has Come _

** Warning : Contains talk about Child Abuse and Incest. **   
\--------------------------------------

Coming home is strange.  I mean I’ve been away so long that I’m not really sure where I stand anymore.  My time in Europe has been both awakening for me, and a definite growing experience.  When I left, I had told Brian that I was going to use this time to grow, and I think I have accomplished that.  Granted I can honestly say that it will not be the way that everyone expects.

I had learned things while I was there, that I don’t know what it all means.  Did the things that I am remembering really happen?  Or am I just making things up… putting my own fears and disappointments into something else entirely?  I don’t know really.

As I sit on this plane, heading back to the place I had left so long ago, I wonder what will greet me there.  Will my friends still be there for me?  They had said that they forgave me for everything… for leaving without a word… for lying, but I wonder if they truly did.

Brian and I had actually worked hard at this whole trying to be friends thing… talking to each other via e-mail, and chats as often as we could.  I think that for the first time ever, I really know him.  I don’t know however what will happen when we touch down in Pittsburgh.  I don’t know what will happen then.  I don’t see things, feel things the way I used to… and actually that scares me.

Let me backtrack here.  Let you know what really was going on, and you can see just what I am talking about.

First off things hadn’t really been easy for me lately… okay so for the past couple of years.  I had lived in this bubble of sorts… thinking that all was right in the world… that nothing could touch me.  If I wanted something I did everything in my power to get that one thing.  It just so happened that I had set my sights on Brian.  Man, was that one hell of a wild ride.  But then Hobbs happened.

I still don’t remember much of that night… or the days leading up to it.  I remember parts of the actual attack, but that’s it.  And believe you me, I tried to remember.  I guess it was that trying to recall those missing days, that missing dance that got me to where I am now.  I mean if I hadn’t tried to unlock those memories, then the ones that I’m faced with now never would’ve surfaced.  They would’ve stayed locked behind those doors that they had been buried beneath for about 10 years.  But then again… when have I ever done anything the right way – the easy way?

Anyway… Brian and I started to have some problems.  I fucked up… he wouldn’t listen to me… things just went down hill fast, and there was nothing either of us could’ve done to stop the train wreck waiting to happen.  Believe me I tried.  I had pretended to be in love with this guy that Mel and Lindsey had introduced me to.  We became friends, and one day I asked him if he could help me out.  I think that he actually wanted more, I don’t know.  I mean yeah… the sex was great, the one time we did it, but I don’t know.  The thing was… I didn’t love him.  I never did.  The one person I loved however… I don’t know.  Did he love me?  Or was I just a convenient fuck?

Now don’t get me wrong, I knew that Brian cared about me.  That was never in doubt… it was how much he cared that was in question.  After he had pissed on my work, I had serious doubts about us… about what he felt for me.  I guess I never fully got over that.  It was after that moment that everything else seemed to get blown out of proportion.  My Birthday, the tricks, the Vermont trip… everything just was crazy for me.  I’ve been told by people that I really need to get help, that I’m suffering from Post Traumatic Disorder, but I don’t think so.  I mean I feel fine, really I do.  I don’t know how I could.  But then again, what the hell do I know half of the time.  So anyway, I had figured out this BIG plan to get Brian to admit that he cared about me… only problem was it blew up in my face.  I lost it all that night.  I lost Brian.

It wasn’t long after I had left Brian.

It had been two weeks.  Two weeks since I left Brian standing alone inside Babylon.  Two weeks since I walked out with Ethan, leaving everyone and everything behind.  Yeah, the gang still talked to me for the most part, but I could feel the tension in the air whenever I’m around them.  No one knew quite what to say.  When one of them would start to say that I had done a good thing in getting away from Brian, I would stand up for the older man, telling them that they knew nothing of my relationship with Brian.  What no one knew was that Ethan and I never really was.  I tried to force Brian’s hand, to push Brian to show some feelings toward me, only to have everything blow up in my face.

If I had learned anything from my time with Brian, it was that in order to get the man to do anything you had to give him a small push.  Okay, so MY small push had lead to a complete and total disaster, but I tried.  Now, I’m forced to live with my mistake.  Live with the fact that I had finally pushed Brian Kinney too far.  Way past the breaking point.  I was on my own for the first time in my life.  I never would’ve guessed that I would be here when I started this whole thing.  Yeah, I knew that the two of us were heading for trouble, and that it was for the most part my fault, but I had hoped that we could’ve worked beyond it.

However, things hadn’t worked out the way that I had hoped they would’ve.

I knew that I couldn’t stay here in Pittsburgh.  I needed to get away from this place and the memories of my fuck-up -- basically away from Brian.  When the letter came in the mail, I had completely forgotten that I had even applied for the scholarship, and to say that I was in shock as I sat on my bed at my mother’s, would be an understatement.  I had been accepted to study in Greece and Italy at the Aegean Center for Fine Arts.  Maybe it’s a good thing that Brian and I aren’t together right now, not fully believing it.  I knew that if Brian and I had been together I would’ve thought against going, but as it stands now I relish in the idea.  A chance to get away from Pittsburgh for a full year.  To grow, and learn.  I could finally get over Brian.

I only hoped I’d be able to do just that.  But now was not the time to think about Brian… I had things to plan and people to see.  The term was to start March 2nd, and I was not going to miss this trip.  I planned on not really telling anyone until right before I left.  The last thing I wanted was for Brian to know, I didn’t think that I could sit and talk to the man I still loved, knowing how I had messed things up for us.  Of course, I knew that I really didn’t have to worry about the comic anymore, since Michael had told me that under no circumstances would I will be working with him on the comic.  At least not face to face.  I was told that the only way that he would work with me was through e-mail or messenger.  No matter how pissed that made me, I knew that it would actually be for the best.  I didn’t think that I could face Michael’s hate right now.

The worst thing for me was the other problems I’ve been having for the past couple of weeks.  Since the night of the Rage Party, I had been having nightmares.  Or maybe they’re memories…what happened at the prom.  I thought I was over those, gotten past the pain, and sorrow of that night.  I thought I was stronger than that.  But that night… seeing the bashing being played out right before me… the crowd cheering, I felt sick.  I was ready to call it off with Ethan, tell the other man that I didn’t want to go through with it, but seeing Brian in the backroom – I knew that it was over.  When I needed Brian the most, the older man was completely unavailable – fucking ‘himself’ in the backroom.

So bags packed, my plane leaving soon, I sat down at my desk and began to write.  I knew that I should see Brian, explain that I didn’t need the tuition money this coming year, but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to even get close to the building.  I didn’t want to see the pain I had caused Brian.  Of course I know he lied when he told Lindsey he didn’t love me… that he never did.  I know he did, as much as he could anyway.  I had to believe that.  I can’t believe that this past year had been a mistake.  I decided that a letter to my former lover would be best.  One last letter, and I could start fresh – to say good-bye once and for all, and close the book on Brian and I.

I had to if I was ever to survive.

So I had put my bags by the door and head out.  I had to go and see everyone before I left… I just had to.   So I started my day off with visiting everyone.

It didn’t take me long to find myself at Deb’s.  I had already said good-bye to everyone else, and I guess I wanted Deb to be the last.  As I walked up to the front door, I had take a deep breath, hoping that I can get through this last good-bye before I was gone. I’d already seen Emmett and Ted, and had dinner with Lindsey and Melanie last night. I was almost done.  Daphne was the hardest to say good-bye to, but we both agreed to write and talk to each other as much as possible.  We both were adamant that it was only going to be for a year, and it wasn’t like I was never going to come back.  I would be back, I knew that.  I only hoped that I would be strong enough by then to live my new life without Brian.

Since Deb never locked the door, I slowly opened it, knocking on the wood as I peeked in.  “Sunshine, come in,” Deb said from the kitchen.

“How’d you know it were me,” I asked with a smile as I made my way into the house.

Vic was sitting at the table looking through the morning paper, and laughed.  “No one else knocks… they all just barge right in.”

“Well I guess I’ll just have to change my ways if I ever want to surprise you guys.”  I sat down at the table as Deb places a plate of food in front of me.  I tried not to laugh since it seemed every time that I was there Deb fed me… no matter what time of the day it was.  That’s one thing that I knew I was going to miss during the next year.  “Actually I just came by to tell you guys the good news,” I said as I picked up the fork and took a bite of the lunch Deb had prepared.

“What’s that, Sunshine,” Deb asked sitting down in the chair next to me.

“Remember me telling you about that study abroad program… you know the one where I would study in Greece and Italy?  Well I’ve been accepted, and I leave this Friday.”  I watched as the two’s faces went from shocked to happy in an instant.

Deb got out of her chair and pulled me into a hug, squeezing the air out right out of my lungs.  I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to breathe again.  “I’m so proud of you.  I knew you could do it… Wait,” she said pulling back.  “Friday?  That’s two days away?  We…we have to have a party.  A going away party.”

“Deb… it’s okay, really.  I don’t want a party.  I just want to spend the next couple of days seeing everyone, and just hanging out.  The next year was going to be hectic as is.  So please… don’t worry about it,” I said hoping she would get the hint that I didn’t want anything.  I hoped I had convinced Emmett of that fact, but for some reason I was almost positive that I would have to endure at least ONE party before I boarded the plane.  That was the whole point of waiting until the last minute before telling the gang.  Of course none of them knew when I was really leaving, and I had just known that I was going to catch hell for it, but I really didn’t want to make a big production out of this.  All I wanted was to get on the plane and leave this all behind for a while.

Deb about ran up the stairs to get some things that she wanted me to have for the trip, as Vic just sat there and looked me over.  “So, have you told Brian about this,” Vic asked knowing what I still felt for Brian.

I smiled slightly and shrugged.  “Not really.  I haven’t figured out what I would say to him.  I mean I know he will find out no matter what when he gets his check refunded, but … I don’t know if I’m ready to face him yet after… after what happened.”

“I think you owe it to him to let him know,” Vic told me.

“I know.  And I’m going to see him before I go.  I just don’t know what to say to him,” I said, leaning back in the chair.  “How do I tell him that I lied?  That I fucked up and I wish that we could still be together?  I don’t think that I can.  Brian hates one thing… and that’s liars.  He already hates me, I don’t know if I can face him, knowing what I did.”

“Justin,” Vic reached across the table and laid his hand on top of mine.  “You should tell him.  It’s only right.  Who knows, maybe you two can come out of this as friends.  It’s something the two of you never really had before.”

I had smiled slightly at Vic and stood to leave.  “I better get this over with.  Who knows, as you said… we might even be able to be friends.”

Now this is where I have to step back a little.  See I had originally thought that I would just write Brian a letter and be done with that, but I guess you can say that it was Vic who helped change my mind.  He was right.  Brian deserved more than just a letter… he deserved to have me face to face, tell him that I was leaving.  To tell him how badly I fucked up.  He deserves a chance to get out everything that he needs to say.  I owned him that much and more.  I know that, but I tried to deny it.  I figured that if I could just be on the plane, just get the hell out of that town then I could go on like nothing ever happened… that Brian didn’t mean anything to me.

So am I full of shit or what?  I know, it’s wrong to think that.  I know that.  But … I still wasn’t sure that I was ready to face him… to have him mad at me.  There are times that I am just a stupid little twat.

So the entire time over to Brian’s I kept telling myself that I have to do this… that I own him this much.  I deserve whatever he has to say to me.  And I know that no matter what, I can never fully be over him, but if I can face him one last time… then I might have a chance at being happy while I’m away.  It all sounds soo simple.

I talk myself into doing just that… just walking in the loft and telling him.  Let him say what he wants to say, and leave.  Simple.  No drama… no crying… nothing.  In and out.

Once again… I am so full of shit.  All that talk was good, and I actually started to believe it.  That was until I was actually standing right in front of the door.

So there I was standing in front of the loft door, trying to take a deep breath, hoping to gather the courage to knock.  As I raised my hand, the door opened before I could even connect.  Caught off guard, I stood there speechless for a moment.  “Ahh, hey.”  Brian just pulled back the door, walked away and sat down at his desk.  I slowly entered the loft, closing the door behind me.  “I just came by to say good-bye,” I begun trying to keep my voice steady.  I can say that it was not an easy thing.  All that talk before hadn’t done a thing for me, and then standing there in the place I thought as my home, saying good-bye.  Fuck!  All I can remember thinking was ‘Why was I there?  Why the Hell did I think that this would be easier than just sending him the letter?’

Suck it up, Taylor.  Fuck!

I looked around the loft, actually I was looking anywhere but Brian.  I didn’t want to see the pain and anger that I was sure would be there.  “I’m ahhh, I’m going to Europe for a year… to study abroad.  So I.. ah… I guess I just wanted to let you know that you won’t have to worry about the loan or anything.  I’ll have my mom come by and pick up my stuff too, put it all in storage or something.”  Not hearing anything from Brian, I wasn’t sure if the other man had heard a word I had said.  Granted that was one of the main reasons we had imploded to begin with, but I am so not going to go there.  At the time, I really wasn’t ready to even mention any of his faults; I was all ready just to take the blame entirely on my own shoulders.  So I walked over to the kitchen counter and ran my hand across the smooth surface.  “It should be fun, you know – being over there.  I just… I just wanted you to know that.”

I turned to leave, having said what I went there to say.  Before I could reach the handle of the door, Brian’s voice called out to him.  “The fiddler going with you,” Brian asked.  I could hear the steel in Brian’s voice, and I could hear the pain animating from it.

“Brian,” I began without turning around.  “Ethan and I aren’t together… we never were.  He was just a friend.  I fucked him once, that’s all.  I thought…I hoped that if you thought he and I were… together that maybe…”  I shook my head trying to clear my thoughts.  “But it doesn’t matter now.  You said what you wanted to say, and I understand.  I pushed too hard, and now we… I have to live with it.  I’m sorry, Brian.  I don’t know what else to say.”

Brian walked up behind me so that he was standing close.  I could feel the heat from his body, as it was inches from my own.  God, I knew at that moment that I would never love anyone the way I had loved him.  No one would be able to compare to the passion that we had shared.  No one would have ever been able to bring these feelings that I had at that moment out of me… no one but Brian.  I knew that.  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I turned around and looked up at my former lover.  “Just what I said, Brian.  I used Ethan to try and get you to admit you cared… to try and push you into something that you weren’t ready for.  I fucked up, BIG time, and now… now I guess I just have to deal with it.  I hope, my only hope, was that we might be able to be friends someday… I can understand,” I began.  Before I could get anything else out through, Brian pulled me in and kissed me deeply.  Pushing me against the metal door, he plunged his tongue into my mouth, deepening the kiss.  My hands automatically started to run up and down Brian’s back, as Brian reached for the hem of my shirt – yanking it from my jeans and pulling it up over my head.  “Brian… we … we shouldn’t do this.  I don’t know if I can handle it right now,” I said trying to catch my breath.  As much as I wanted Brian at that moment, I also knew that I didn’t want to have a mercy fuck either.  I wanted to mean something to Brian, and if we fucked now… I knew that I wouldn’t survive, at least I didn’t think I would.

Brian kissed me again and all thoughts of why I shouldn’t do this left, as I lost myself in Brian.  Reaching up, I wrapped his arms around Brian’s neck, pulling him in closer – deepening the kiss.  Brian started to pull me back toward the bedroom, clothes being stripped from our bodies as we made it to the bed.  I laid back on the bed as Brian slowly moved his way up my body.  With hands and mouth, Brian made sure that no part of my body was left untouched.

I woke the next morning and looked at my lover – former lover.  God when did this get so fucked up?  Slipping out of bed, hoping not to wake Brian, I slipped on my clothes, and headed toward Brian’s desk.  I hated to leave like that, but if I didn’t do things this way, I would never get on the plane.

Okay so I know that I hadn’t told Deb the truth the other day when I told her I was leaving Friday.  The truth was I was leaving on a plane in four hours.  The last thing I wanted was a huge deal made out of this, and that was why I had waited until the very last minute to tell them.

No matter what anyone thought, I did love everyone there, and I hated that I had brought them all so much pain lately.  I was grateful that with the exception of Michael, everyone still treated me the same.  I knew that Michael and I would never be friends, but I had secretly hoped that our working relationship would’ve continued.  Maybe I would call Michael when I got to Greece, and try and work things out.  Working on Rage WAS one of the things that I had enjoyed doing.  I wasn’t quite ready to give that up yet.

I knew that the note that I had written Brian yesterday wasn’t going to work.  So I sat down and began to write a quick note to Brian.  I took one last look around the loft, hoping that this final move wouldn’t destroy the chance of Brian being in my life.  But it’s a chance I was willing to take, cause the way it stood in that one moment, I wasn’t ready to go back to the way things were either.  I had some serious thinking to do about where I wanted my life to be, and what I wanted to be without anyone else involved.  Cause I was Justin Taylor first, not one half of Brian and Justin.  I am my own person, and I needed to discover myself, and refocus on my art.  That’s where I wanted to be.  That’s where I hoped I could end up once this study abroad was over.

Walking to the door, I slowly opened it.  Looking back toward the bedroom, I smiled slightly.  “Later, Brian.  I’ll always love you,” I whispered closing the door behind me.  I left that day… left Brian alone with his life.  I went straight toward my mom’s, picked up my luggage, and headed for the airport.  I left everything and everyone behind so that I could get on with my life.

The moment I arrived in Greece for the first part of this schooling, I knew that I had made the right decision.

It seemed as if my life had two modes to it… either my art was good, but my personal life sucked, or my personal life was good, and my art sucked.  There were times when they both either sucked or were good, but not often.  I knew the moment I got off the plane that this time would be different.  I would find out what was important on this trip… I would find where I belonged.

Anyway, I remembered drawing for as long as I can remember.  I always liked it… no LOVED it.  My dad at first was all for it… so proud of my accomplishments.  But then it all changed.  His view of me changed.  He kept pushing me to join sports, to hang out with the guys and NOT Daphne… everything!  I think he started to resent me.  He thought for a while that it was just me being creative, but then again I know he didn’t like it.  He didn’t like that I spent all of my time behind a sketch pad, it was too girly.

I think that was why he was pushing so hard for me to go to Dartmouth.  He wanted me to be a ‘man’.  God, I remember after he had smashed Brian’s jeep, Dad had threatened to send me to military school.  He told me that I needed to be a man, know what it was like to be a man.  That was the first time I remember him hitting me.

God, I wish that was all I remember, that I could go back to being that innocent young man.

I remember my first real art show, or as close as I was to get.  The one where I sold the drawing of Brian.  I almost didn’t do it, bad wouldn’t have if not for Mel and Lindsey.  Both of them were all for my art, telling me how good it was.  I think that Brian’s reaction was an added plus as well.

I never saw the money from the sale, and I didn’t know at the time what had happened to it.  I later found out that Brian had been the one to buy it.  Imagine my shock when I am cleaning the loft one day, and stumble across it.  I never asked him about it, nor had I ever told him that I knew.  It’s just one of those little moments that we let ourselves believe something that may or may not be there.

It’s just one more secret between Brian and I.

So says the way it is with us.

 So anyway after the Prom, I didn’t know what I was going to do.  Without my art, I was lost – I didn’t know what to do, or how to live.  Art was my life – there was many times in my life when my art was all I had – the only friend I had.  I guess that’s why when Brian got that computer for me, I lost it.  He was trying to fix me, when I lost a close friend.

I was so mad at how everyone wanted to make everything go away, just fix poor little Justin.

Thank god that I realized that Brian wanted me to feel whole and that I didn’t lose my life.

Granted when he had gotten jealous about Michael and I a year ago.  I would’ve been thrilled that he had been jealous, but in that moment all I saw was hatred.

I mean how the hell could he do that?  Hw the hell could he treat my art like that?  Treat my dream, my life like that?  More importantly, how can he treat what it represented US like that?

Okay so I may not remember that night, but dammit when he pissed on my work, on THOSE drawings, it sent me a clear message.  I just couldn’t understand why he ever let me stay with him if he felt that way.

He apologized however, I dropped it… okay so I should’ve pushed the whole thing, I should’ve talked to him… yelled at him, but I didn’t.  I’m not sure why, but I left it all alone.

That was one of my biggest mistakes in my life.  It was that moment when I had serious doubts in us, in his feelings for me.

My mistake.  I had forgotten how to read him.  My mistake.

Oh there were other things, and I can’t take the total blame for it all, and neither can he.  But I know that what I did and didn’t do sure as hell didn’t help at all.

“You’re thinking too much,” my companion stated.  I turn to face Brian and give him a small smile.  “What’s going through that head of yours,” he asked.  He took my hand into his, and just held it.

I shrug, and take a deep breath.  “Nothing really,” I told him.  Immediately I could see the disappointment in his eyes, and I know that he didn’t buy it.  “Everything,” I amend.

He’s learned a lot about me these past couple of weeks that it’s amazing that he can tell what I’m thinking especially when I don’t want him to.  Brian smirks at me, raising his eyebrow.  He thinks that it’s funny.  “Really?  Can you fit it all in there?”

Fucker.  “Shut-up,” I say shaking my head.

“I mean everything… that’s got to be hard to figure out.  What is the aerodynamics of flying?  Why is the sky blue?  Why is cock better than pussy,” he joked.

“Fuck off,” I say pushing him playfully.  God he can be so infuriating.  “Not that, asshole.  I guess I’m just trying to figure out how the hell we got here.  How the hell I got here, and I can’t even figure out how the hell I survived.”

Brian shakes his head and roll his eyes.  “Jesus, Justin.  Do you really want to get into this now?”  I can tell that he’s annoyed, but damn.  I don’t know what to say or anything.  I swear that we have talked about this whole thing to death in the past couple of weeks… hell months, but I just can’t get it out of my head.  “Can’t it wait till we get home?”

I shake my head in order to clear my thoughts.  He’s right the plane is NOT the place where I… where we need to discuss this.  “Yeah… yeah.”

“Everything will work out, Justin,” he tells me.  I turn away from his to look out the window.  I want to believe him, but I know better.  Nothing in my life has ever just worked out, and now that I find out that everything that I had lead myself to believe isn’t true…

No.  Everything is all fucked.

I just wish that my life could finally be good… that things would for once go smoothly for me.  I guess that’s not meant to be.  My life just isn’t supposed to be smooth.  “Have you figured out where you’re going to stay?  You know my offer’s still there.”

I nod, not really sure what to say.  “I’ll keep it in mind.  But you know where I stand with that, Brian.  I can’t just jump back into a relationship with you… I can’t just take a step back.  I’ve done enough of that in the past couple of months.  I’m tired of moving backwards.”  I hold his hand tighter in my own, and turn slightly toward him.  “I need to try and take care of myself… to see if I can do it.  I need to start to move forward.  I need to figure out how to be me.”

Brian nodded, agreeing with me.  I’m glad that he understands, it makes things so much easier for me.  If he didn’t then I don’t know what I would do.  I mean, this isn’t easy for me, and we’ve talked this whole fucking mess to death.  So with him saying that he understands… well maybe not real happy about it, but he’s willing to give me the space I need.  For now that’s enough.  He doesn’t like it, but there isn’t anything that we can do about it.

The first time that I had talked to Brian after I had gotten in Greece, I wasn’t sure what to say to him.  I mean I had left him high and dry, asleep in his bed after a night of sex.  I should’ve handled it differently, I know that, but I also know that I wouldn’t be here now if I had.  Who knows how things would’ve turned out, if I had just done things differently.

I was checking my e-mail, chatting with Daph – gotta love chat programs, when I got another IM.  I told Daph that I would talk to her later, and replied to the person on the other side.

GGtoGAYPA:  Hey.  You there?  
SUNSHIN:  Right here… Brian?  
GGtoGAYPA:  yep.  So how’s Greece?  
SUNSHIN:  Since when do you have IM?  Well besides for all those sexchats?  
GGtoGAYPA:  A while, now answer the fucking question  
SUNSHIN: It’s okay.  School’s already started, so I’m busy as hell.  But things are going okay so far.  You know how it is.  Busy, busy.  Trying to learn the language and stuff.  That’s a bitch.  
GGtoGAYPA: I can imagine.  What’s the school like?  Is it anything like what you looked at on the net?  
SUNSHIN:  yeah, basically.  Have a roommate.  He’s an ass, but…  
GGtoGAYPA:  ahhh college.  
SUNSHIN:  fuck off. ?  
GGtoGAYPA:  now now, sonnyboy. None of that.  
SUNSHIN:  so…  
GGtoGAYPA:  So.

So that’s how it started, the road back to each other.  I guess looking back on it now; one would think that I’m crazy for thinking that.  That nothing was really said during our first conversation, but I guess for me, it was the first time we ever really talked.  Yeah, we had talked while we were living together, but this was the first time I felt like he actually cared, and listened.

So as time went on, we began to make it almost a nightly routine… just sitting down chatting with each other about nothing.  The entire time that I was talking with Brian, I was trying to get myself together.  And for me in order to do that, I had to get back the lost memories of the Prom – or so I  thought.  I started to see someone who deals with Regression Therapy.  I was lucky that there was someone attached to the school, and I knew that I had to do this.  Not for Brian, or anyone else… but for me.  I wanted to remember.  I NEEDED to remember.  I hated the fact that all I could remember was the actual bashing… and even that was sketchy at best.  So I went.

I never told Brian about it, or anyone for that matter.  I knew that if they had any idea they would tell me to come home… that I needed to be home if I wanted to do this.  They had to be there for me.  The thing is… when I was ready to talk about, when I wanted to talk about it, they didn’t.  So what was I going to do?

Mark is a great guy.  He’s funny, smart, sexy… and unfortunately straight.  During our first couple of meetings we went over what I actually remember, what I had heard happened… who we could talk to in order to verify the information – everything that needed to be done in order to ensure my safety.  Mark explained that this type of therapy had gotten a lot of slack lately because people felt that the therapist put things in someone’s head.  He wanted to ensure that what I remembered if anything – since there were no guarantees – were my own memories.

Once it started however, it was nothing like I thought it would be.  It seemed that once we opened the door in my mind – everything started to open up for me.  I wouldn’t get full clips of an event, more like just a snapshot, a picture.  Sometimes, I would have the feelings with it… it was strange.  But the thing was I also started to get pictures of something from LONG before the Prom.  Something that I didn’t want to believe.

Mark says that when something traumatic happens when you are little, the mind blocks it out.  We had opened the door, and my mind felt that I was ready to deal with the images that I was getting.  So not only did I have to deal with the shit that I was remembering about those days leading up to and after the Prom, but I now had to try and deal with the fact that my own father…

Fuck!  Even now, it’s hard to even think about.  No child… no person wants to think that they may have been violated… but it’s almost unimaginable to think that they were violated by their own father.

I think, no I know, that after the memories started to surface, I sort of shut down.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to deal with them.  My art took a drastic turn, now they were much darker.  My instructors were worried, but they all agreed that it was still good work, but the actual content of the pieces were frightening to them.  Hell they scared the shit out of me.  If one knew what I was going through, they could see the transition… see what I remembered.  If it was something dealing with the Prom, and my time with Brian – totally excluding the bashing that is – it was beautiful colors.  You could feel the love in them.

However, if it dealt with the bashing, my hospital stay… or my childhood – the pictures took a much darker tone.  Dark colors, haunting images of confinement, punishment, pain.  I guess one could say that some of my best art came from these memories.  Who knows anymore, all I know is that I was scared.  I felt betrayed, angry.

I kept thinking, wondering if my mom knew.  I wondered if he did the same thing to Molly.  Could I get out of this whole ordeal with my mind intact?  I felt like I was drowning.  This time there was no one there to catch me, to help me.  So I had to rely on myself.

I know that because of it I’m stronger.  I know who I am, what I am.  I know that I can get through anything now.  Yeah, my outlook on life has changed drastically… but I also think that I can eventually get on with my life.  I know that now.  I know that I don’t NEED anyone to make me better – to fix me.  I only need myself.  Now that’s not saying that I want that… no, quite the opposite actually.  I want someone there to take some of the pain away, in essence to fix me… but I know that I don’t NEED it.

I know that Brian was starting to get curious about what was going on, why I was so aloof, but I knew I couldn’t tell him.  Not yet, anyway.  I first wanted to figure out for myself how I could deal with it.  What I was remembering changed how I saw everything and everyone around me.  How I viewed my life up to that point, and what I saw for myself in the future.  I honestly didn’t know if I ever wanted anyone to ever touch me again.  Not my body, and sure as hell not my heart.  I wanted to be separate from everything.

So my conversations with Brian would be different.  I would try and stay away from anything dealing with what I was actually feeling, what I was going through.  I tried to stay on other things, like school, friends, things from home.  I tried to concentrate on what was going on with my adopted family, not my real one.  Two months after I got to Greece, I had in reality stopped contacting my mom.  I couldn’t deal with it anymore, I didn’t want to deal with her.  I didn’t think I could deal with the fact that she had lied to me… that she might have known all this time, and never did anything to stop him.

So for months, Brian and I talked about… well almost everything.  I like to think that we were growing closer.  We were finally becoming friends, something that we never had before.  I just knew that once I saw him again, things would be alright.  We were growing.  Then I didn’t hear from him for days.  I was so scared… wondering if he was hurt, or hell even killed.  I mean I know Brian.  He never really takes care of himself.

Finally, I figure that the only way that I’ll be able to get some answers is to break down and call.  I knew I wasn’t ready to hear his voice… that if we talked then he would hear in my voice that something was wrong, but I had to know he was alright.  Waiting for someone to pick up seemed like it was the longest time in my life.  “Hello,” I hear the voice on the other end say.

I take a deep breathe and let it out slowly.  I really didn’t want to talk to this person, but I knew if I was going to reach Brian I would have to suck it up.  “Michael?  It’s Justin, is Brian there?”

“What the fuck are you doing calling?”

I cringe slightly, pissed that he would try and cop an attitude with me.  I mean HE was the one who betrayed me.  If Brian isn’t too pissed about it, then why should Michael be?  “Is he there or not?”

“Listen you little shit, Brian doesn’t want anything to do with you.  Haven’t you caught on yet?  He wants you to leave him alone.”  Okay, now I know I should’ve called him a liar.  Tell him he was wrong, but you’ve got to understand something.  Here I was, alone in a foreign country, away from everyone.  I’ve been having these problems with the memories, and fuck… I hadn’t heard from Brian in a week.  So tell me if I wasn’t actually believing him.  Stupid I know, but I did.  “Just stay out of our lives, and stay out of Brian’s.  Don’t call him again.”

After Michael hung up, I could only stare at the phone in my hand.  I felt nothing, absolutely nothing.  Which I think was the worst thing for me to do.  For the next couple of days, I tried my hardest to NOT think about Brian, and what Michael had said.  It wasn’t easy, especially since all I had going through my mind the entire time I hadn’t heard from him was the Prom.  Well with a few more glimpses of my dad, but I wanted to focus on the good times, the best time.

Imagine my surprise however when Rachel came to my room and told me that there was a call for me downstairs.  I had them transfer it to another phone and I picked it up.  The only thing that was going through my mind was that something bad happened at home.  I had specifically told mom that this number was for emergencies only.  “Hello,” I begin, silently praying that everything was alright.

“Hey, bout time I caught you,” Brian’s voice came across.

“Is everything alright?  Gus?  Mom,” I asked thinking that it had to have been the only reason why he would be calling.  If it was anyone else, mom would’ve called.  I mean I knew Brian wouldn’t call just to shoot the shit.  He wanted nothing to do with me, right?

“Everyone’s fine, Justin.  What’s up with you,” he asked me.

Okay…. So that just slightly pissed me off.  He calls after now TWO weeks of NOT talking to me, to wanting to know what I was doing?  What the fuck?!  I was Pissed… no more than pissed, I was fucking furious.  “What the fuck do you care,” I ask him back.  Now, just keep in mind here, all the shit that I have been going through, and then Michael’s comment … To say that I wasn’t in a mood for some little game would be an understatement.  “If everyone’s alright, then I will let you get back to whatever… whoever you’re doing.  I wouldn’t want to be accused of making you do something that you didn’t want to do… to make you feel like you actually give a fuck what is going on in my life.”

I was about ready to hang up when I heard his reply.  “What the fuck are you talking about?  What the hell is up with you?”  Brian sounded angry, and I can tell you it wasn’t good.  See the thing with Brian and I is, when one of us is angry, we have a tendency to get the other one angry… so we fuel each other’s anger.  It becomes ugly… really fucking ugly.  We both have a temper, and both are stubborn as hell, so to try and get one of us to stay calm is an impossible task.

I of course, just bust out laughing.  It was ridiculous.  Totally and absolutely ridiculous.  “I don’t hear from you for two fucking weeks, I call and Michael tells me what the fuck you can’t.  Excuse me if I’m just a little upset, Brian.  I thought that you would be able to tell me that you didn’t want to be friends.  I thought that we had started to become friends, and now I find out that it was all a big fat fucking lie?  Nothing for TWO FUCKING WEEKS, Brian!”

I hear Brian take a deep breath on the other side, and I know he’s trying to calm himself.  Yeah, like that would ever happen.  “Listen, Justin.  I don’t know what the fuck Mikey told you, but it’s not true.  I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, and I thought we could have a civilized conversation.  Excuse me for being wrong.  Mikey doesn’t know shit, and if you think that I am not trying here, then you can take your attitude and shove it.”

“Yeah, right.  So what should I believe, Brian?  I mean I’m sorry you’ve had a bad week, but you could’ve dropped me a quick little note or something saying ‘hey, bad week, talk to you soon’.  Something.  Instead I get Michael.”

“What did he say,” Brian asked softly.

“Nothing that isn’t true,” I tell him.  I sounded a little weak when I said it, and I bite my lip in order to wake myself up.

“Justin,” he scolded.

“Fine.  Jesus!  He told me that I should just leave you all alone, stay away from all of you.”  So I was leaving the rest of it out, but I guess I didn’t want him to think that the main reason why I was so pissed is cause he had said that Brian didn’t want me.  I have tried not to think about what those words had done to me, what they had made me feel.  But it is hard.  It’s hard to sit here and admit to myself, even now, that I want to be with Brian… that I still love him, and always will.  I don’t want to rely on anyone anymore, but I know I can’t fool myself into thinking that I can get Brian out of my head and heart.

“You know that it’s bullshit.  Justin… Mikey…You know that it’s not true.  If I didn’t want to talk to you, I would tell you.”  He informs me.  His voice is soft and quiet, and it makes me want to just give in and do whatever he wants me to do.

“So what was so wrong that you couldn’t say anything to me?  Why haven’t I heard from you,” I ask.  God, I hate how I can sound so desperate when I’m talking to him.  I just hate it.  No matter how many times I tell myself that I am stronger than this… that I don’t need him, I turn around and just take two steps back.  I act like that damn 17-year-old kid who needs his approval, and his attention.  Dammit, I’m not that kid anymore.

I hear Brian take a deep breath, and I just know that whatever it is – whatever had happened is big.  “I was fired,” he said simply.

Okay, now that was the LAST thing that I had ever thought he would’ve said.  It wasn’t big it was fucking Earth Shattering.  How the Hell could this happen?  Brian lost his job?  I was so floored.  “What,” I ask, just totally dumbfounded.

“I… was…fired,” he slowly states.

God I hate it when he treats me like a child.  Alright… now just keep in mind, I wasn’t really in my OWN right frame of mind.  Everything for me was just totally messed up, and now to hear – mind you AFTER two weeks – that he had lost his job, actually pissed me off.  I felt like everything just began to spin out of control.  I couldn’t – wouldn’t – believe it.  I didn’t want to believe it.  “That’s totally fucked up… what the hell was their reason?  They can’t do that, you’re a partner for crying out loud.  They can’t just fire you.”

“Well they did.”

“So what the fuck are you going to do,” I ask.  He seems so calm while I’m here having a nervous breakdown.

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine.  I just started a new job, and things are looking up – as much as the can anyway.  So that’s where I’ve been for the past two weeks,” he says as an explanation.

Okay, now here is where I should have just left things.  Really, I should’ve just left everything the way it was, and just said that I was happy for him.  Just kept my big mouth shut and just said ‘that’s good Brian’.  But did I… no.  I swear one of these days my big mouth is going to get me in real trouble and nothing will be able to help me.

But as I said… instead of being quiet, I stepped straight into quicksand.  “So you decided to NOT tell me this… you just decided that I wasn’t important enough to know that you lost your job?  Everyone else knows, but hey Justin doesn’t need to know.  Well fuck you Brian.  Friends tell each other shit like this.”

“There is nothing you could’ve done, and besides you have enough that you have to worry about.  I handled it.  Nothing for you to worry about,” he informed me.  I could hear the irritation in his voice, and it only served to piss me off more.

“It doesn’t matter Brian.  Friends tell each other stuff.  Evidentially I don’t matter… what I think or feel means nothing to you.  I could’ve done something Brian, even if it was only to listen.  But no…”

“And what the hell could you have done?  Huh?  Blackmail Vance like you did Kip?”  Quicksand… and I was fucking sinking fast.  Fuck!  Brian seemed all calm, but I could just hear the anger starting to slip through… just barely contained.  Fuck!  One of the things that I never wanted him to know about… and he has to bring it up.  I can tell you that at that moment I was never happier about being thousands of miles away.  Briefly I start to entertain the thought of staying in Europe – I don’t know maybe for the rest of my life!  All I knew was that I was soooo dead.  “You don’t honestly think I wouldn’t find out did you?  I knew right after it happened, and I just let it go.  But Justin, trust me on this… I have not forgotten.  In this instance, there would’ve been nothing you could’ve done.  So you tell me why I didn’t tell you?”

I knew now… at least I had a feeling as to why he didn’t tell me.  It of course didn’t make me feel better.  I mean it’s not like I could just hope on a plane and try to seduce Vance, and make him give Brian’s job back to him.  I am not that good!  But I also knew that there was nothing that I could say in my defense.  I know… deep down I know that I would do anything to protect Brian.  I would do what I had to do in order to keep him safe.  Unfortunately he knows that too.

Luckily, we sort of left things there.  Yeah, I mean, it’s not over… he still feels he ‘owes’ me for that little thing, but I think we both agreed that neither one of us would win that argument.  We both knew that if I hadn’t done that, then Brian very well could’ve lost his job.  Well lost it long before now… but I also know that Brian’s still pissed about it.  It was stupid of me, and I could’ve been really hurt.

So we just pushed it aside and just left it there.  We’ll talk about it again, I’m sure.  But for now… I’m safe from punishment.  Thank god.  So we just continued on the same way we had since I had gotten to Europe.  There were times now that we talked on the phone… but I was still cautious.  I still knew that Brian, out of everyone, knew me the best and he would hear if something was wrong.  So I had planned my talks to him on the phone for good days only.  If I had a bad night… or day, I would just drop him a quick e-mail or IM saying that I’m really busy with a project or something and I couldn’t talk long.

It worked good too.  He never realized that something else was going on.

That was until I got to Italy for the second phase of the program.  The shit started to ignore my ‘I can’t talk long’ messages.  The gig was up… D day has come.  What I had to figure out next was what to tell him.  What could I tell him that wasn’t exactly a lie… but then again not exactly the truth either?

So I went with plan C.

I stopped talking to him all together.

I should’ve known that wouldn’t have worked either.

We’re hours away from the States, and I just can’t keep my mind off of all this shit long enough to sleep.  I look over at Brian and see that luckily he doesn’t have the same problem I do.  I wish to God that I can just quiet my mind long enough to get a couple of hours sleep before I have to decide what I’m going to do.  I still don’t know that.  Hell I don’t even know where I’m going to stay.  Yeah, I know I had told Brian that I couldn’t stay with him, and that’s all I know.  Where I’ll live, is completely up in the air.

I close my eyes and lean my head against the window.  I just wish I knew where my life was going.  I had started this whole thing hoping to get my life in order, to find myself.  I did find myself.  I know who I am – I do.  I just wish I could’ve gotten my life in order.  No, instead of doing that, I completely fucked it all up.  I am more confused about where I am heading, and what I want to do than I was before.  I found myself to be one fucked up person.  So that’s not really what I wanted to discover about myself, but I won’t lie to myself either.  I can’t do that – I won’t do that.

God, Brian… I really don’t know where I would be without him.  My big plan to just ignore him, just push him out of my life was a complete joke.  I tried.  I really did.  Unfortunately I forgot one important thing.  No one makes Brian Kinney do something he doesn’t want to do.  And he was hell bent on making US work.  Who would’ve thought that Brian would be the one fighting for us?  Not me that’s for sure.

Oh I’m sure that anger was a big part of it.  I know he was pissed that I had just completely shut him out.  I know he was, and I have already gotten hell for that one.  Everyday I would have at least twenty e-mails from him… my voice mail was full of messages.  I refused to even open up my chat program, and whenever anyone came to get me for a phone call, I just told them I was busy.  I had hoped he would get the hint that he wouldn’t bother.  I mean, I had believed that he didn’t care THAT much for me.  Yeah, I was sure he wanted to be friends… but to care enough to basically hunt me down?  Never.

God!  That was … is something I think I will take to heart next time I try to blow him off.  I learned a valuable lesson that day.  Never have an angry Brian Kinney come after you.

I mean come on… Brian always told me – told everyone – never chase after anyone.  Never follow anyone.  That was one of his mottos.  Fuck!  So imagine my surprise when I got back from a tour in Florence to see him sitting on my bed.  I had never been afraid of Brian until that moment.  Seeing him sitting there, waiting for me – to say that I was terrified would be a complete understatement.  I wasn’t sure what he wanted, what he would say… hell even why he was there.  All I knew was from the look on his face; I knew that I was in deep shit trouble.

I had walked into my room after a trip into town for the supplies I needed, when I spotted him sitting right there on my fucking bed.  I had to shake my head a couple of times wondering if it was just a dream, or something.  There he was, just sitting there… and dammit all if he wasn’t looking through one of my sketchbooks.  So anyway, to make a long story short – I was pissed.  I was pissed that he had showed up, pissed that I evidently hadn’t done a good enough job trying to keep him away, and pissed that he had invaded my privacy by looking in my sketchbook.  I lost it.  Just totally lost it.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Brian looked up briefly from the book in his hand, just looking at me.  “So where the fuck have you been for the past month, Justin?  I mean you get pissed off at me cause I don’t talk to you for two weeks… You’re one to fucking talk.”

“Just answer the question,” I say as I walk over to him and rip the book out of his hand.  “And what gives you the fucking right to go and look through my personal stuff?  You have no right to just barge in here, and … and look through my things.  That’s called invasion of privacy, Brian.  You have no right.”

Brian just leaned back on the bed, which of course pissed me off more.  I mean, I had tried – fucking tried real hard to keep him out of my messed up life.  I tried to keep him as far away from me as possible.  So what does he do.  He comes all the way to Italy and is sitting on my bed like nothing is wrong.  But everything is wrong, my whole LIFE was wrong.  “Answer my question, and then maybe I’ll answer yours,” he calmly stated.

How he could just lay there being completely calm is beyond me.  I mean I was totally losing it.  “Well I’m sorry, but I didn’t think that I had to be at your beck and call.  I have school, Brian.  That means I have tours that I have to go on, work that I have to do.  I’ve been busy, trying to get the best damn education I can out of this school.  What the fuck do you care anyway,” I yell as I make my way over to the window.

I had tried so hard to keep all of my mess away from him.  I had tried hard so that he wouldn’t hear the pain in my voice, and know that something was wrong.  I hated that I was getting pissed at him… I mean it’s not like it was HIS fault that my dad is… was a child molester, but damn.  I had already put Brian though hell, and I didn’t want to add to it.  He has already helped me out, and now, I’m fucking stuck.  He’s here.  Hell he flew all this way to see me.  I might have been able to hide on the phone or in the chat rooms, but with him here, I know that I can’t hide.  I’m stuck.

“So that kept you for the past month from saying anything.  No time to stop at an internet café and say hi?”  The fact that he uses my own words, basically anyway – against me pissed me off more.  I just turned to look at him briefly, then just turn back to look out the window.  I am not mentally ready for this.  “What type of fool do you think I am, Justin?  Do you really think that I would just let you destroy this?  Well fuck you.”  I felt Brian stand behind me, and I tried not to flinch or move away from him.  If I did that then he would know that something was wrong.  “Want to tell me what those pictures are about?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  It’s a project for one of my classes, nothing more.  Nothing that is really anything,” I tell him, praying that he would just leave it alone.  I know which pictures he’s talking about.  I know.  I had many drawings of a lone child, sitting up in bed, arms wrapped around his legs.  His eyes scared, wild, as a shadow would pass over him.  The pictures were almost always the same – some had more to it, others less.  But the ideas and the principles were all the same.  Fuck, how did this get so blown out of proportion?  I didn’t want him to know, but yet that small part of me… the part that wants someone to take care of me is thrilled that my secret is out.

“A project huh,” he asked me.  I can tell that he doesn’t believe a word that I was saying.  “What the fuck is going on Justin?”

“I don’t owe you anything, Brian.  You can’t just come all this way and invade my privacy… and demand some sort of explanation.  Nothing is wrong, okay.  I’ve been busy with school, trying to get my fucking life in some order,” I tell him.  Okay, I know that I am making no sense at all, and that frankly, I’m only making his case against me stronger.  He knows that I’m lying and here I am just proving him right.  I just looked at him, shook my head and walked out of the room.  I had to get away from him.  That’s all I knew – I just couldn’t stand there and prove to him that I’m nothing more than a lying sack of shit, just like Michael is claiming I am.

Brian grabs a hold of my arm and turns me to face him.  “Don’t you fucking walk away from me,” he hissed.

I look around us and see that all the other students were coming in and they were all beginning to take interest in what was going on.  I was pissed, and the last thing I needed was to have people start adding this to my list of faults.  I had a hard enough time here, with everything.  All the other students – well most – treated me differently.  The fact that I was bashed had been discovered, and some of the other students had started to treat me differently – like I would break.  Then what I draw scares others.  I just can’t win half of the time, and I don’t really want to add to the awkwardness anymore.  “Can we not do this here,” I quietly say to him.

I know that he saw the slightly panic look in my eye, and so he grabbed my hand and lead me out of the building.  I don’t even know how long or far we had walked, but we stopped at the small beach down from the school.  “Now, you want to tell me what the hell is going on?  And don’t tell me nothing, cause I know you’re lying.”

I pull away from him and move closer to the water.  I know that I can’t tell him everything, I can’t, but I have to decide what I do want to – no have to tell him.  God I hate this.  “What do want me to say, Brian? What is it you’re looking for?”  I try hard not to let the exhaustion show in my voice; I don’t want to alarm him.  Yeah, like I did a good job at that since he came all this way trying to find out what I have been doing.  If I didn’t feel guilty before I sure as hell do now.

I know he has just started a new job, and because I was stupid and didn’t call him, even try to contact him, he takes the time off of work to come all the way over here… not to mention the money that he had to spend on a ticket and hotel.  Fuck!  I always have this habit of fucking things up, and I know that I can’t stop the guilt.  “I’m looking for the fucking truth, Justin,” he says as he moves to sit down in the sand next to where I’m standing.  “What the hell is going on?  This isn’t like you.  You don’t call me after I had been silent for two weeks, yelling that I haven’t called then turn around and do the same damn thing.  I think you own me an explanation, don’t you?”

“It isn’t easy for me, Brian.  It hasn’t been easy for me,” I try to explain.

“Try.”

I wrap my arms around me and just continue to stand there looking out at the ocean beyond.  I can see the light reflecting off of the waves as they move toward the shore, and I wonder if I can find the strength to get through this.  It hasn’t been easy for me since I got here.  There is no doubt about that.  “Things haven’t been easy for me for a long time.  I don’t think that I have ever really healed from the … from the Prom,” I tell him.  I don’t have to look at him to know that suddenly he’s uncomfortable.  “We never talked about it… no one wanted to talk about it.  So I just did what everyone wanted me to do, and didn’t talk about it.  I pushed it away, and refused to even think about it.  I found out that I couldn’t though.  It wouldn’t go away.  That night, at the Rage Party… God I felt like everything just exploded.  I couldn’t breathe.”

I shake my head wanting to make sure that I had my thoughts in order.  I couldn’t lose it now… I wanted to make sure that everything was clear.  The last thing I wanted was for Brian to blame himself, even though I know he would.  I started to battle within myself on whether or not I should tell him that I had wanted to stop the whole charade with Ethan, but didn’t when I saw him in the backroom.  Should I tell him that once again when I needed him he wasn’t there?  I mean it’s not entirely true.  Brian had done so much for me, had been there so many times for me, but when I really needed him… needed him to make me better, he wouldn’t be there.  Whether it was physical or emotional, it didn’t really matter.

I decide against mentioning it, and just took a deep breath.  “I know that the whole idea of doing the bashing was my idea, and I felt okay with it.  I wanted to talk about it.  I wanted to get MY story out.  I guess seeing it, live and in living color, being played out right in front of me – people cheering… I guess I lost it.”

I don’t even let him talk at all during this… and I know there have been times he has wanted to stop me from saying anything, but I just won’t let him.  The way I see it… he didn’t want to talk about it when I needed to, so dammit, he’s going to sit there and listen.  I know that I shouldn’t be cruel, but I am tired of doing what everyone else wants me to do.  I, for once, want to do something for me.  I have to do this for me, and I think I have a right to try and get some sort of closure on at least one thing in my life.  I can’t get closure on my other problem, but this is something I can control.  Something I need to get control over.

 “I realized when I got here, what the main problem was.  It wasn’t the bashing really that I had a problem with.  I mean I did… but there was so much more to it than that.  It was the fact that I am missing days of my life.  I didn’t remember Emmett helping me get ready.  I didn’t remember the party for Michael.  I didn’t remember asking Daphne to the Prom.  I didn’t remember the dance.  I guess that I just couldn’t handle not remembering anymore.  I wanted those missing days back.  I wanted something besides those brief images I did have of Hobbs… of the attack,” I tell him.  I can feel the emotions start to rise up within me, and I hate myself for being weak.  I hate that I can’t seem to control the panic, the pain that I feel every time that I close my eyes.  When I think of the prom – all I can hear is Brian calling my name, and seeing the bat coming toward me.

The best night of my life, and I don’t remember a damn thing of it.

It was then that I did turn toward him.  I looked down at him and smiled slightly hoping to let him know that I don’t blame him.  No matter how mad I am at everyone for trying to ignore it, for trying to forget that it ever happened, I don’t blame him for what happened.  It wasn’t Brian’s fault, it was mine.  I don’t ever want him to blame himself for this ever again.  “So when I got here, I went a head and started to see someone for Regression Therapy.”

“Why didn’t you tell us,” Brian asked.  He sounds pissed, and I try to keep calm.  I know that everyone back at home would be pissed for me doing this.  I mean that’s why I didn’t tell anyone.

“Cause I knew that you wouldn’t like it.  And it wasn’t just you… I knew that no one would like it.  I knew that if I mentioned it, everyone would tell me not to do it.  To wait until I came home so that they could be there for me,” I laugh slightly.  Just stating what I knew they would say pissed me off more.  “I am tired of doing what everyone wants me to do.  I think that it’s time for me to standup and take control of my life.  If I had told anyone, by the time I got back home, they would’ve tried to talk me out of it.”

“You don’t know that.  This is something that you shouldn’t go through alone,” Brian argued.

“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I yelled.  “No one wanted to talk about it… who are you to say that it would be any different?  If they didn’t want to talk about it then, they sure as hell won’t want to talk about it now.  You can’t tell me that I’m wrong, Brian.  Nothing you say will make me change my mind.  This is my life… not yours, not my moms, not anyone else’s.  It’s mine.  I need those memories.  This is something that I need to do, and not for anyone else but for myself.  I think I’m old enough to decide if I want to have those memories back.  No one has ever been through something like this.  No one.  So who are you guys to say what I can or can’t do… what I feel or don’t feel?”

I turn again and wrap my arms tighter around my body.  “I know that you were a victim of that whole thing as well, and I know that you have been hurt by it too.  But the thing is no one knows what’s it’s like to have your life change this way … no one has had a part of their life taken from them.  I’m not missing a couple of hours cause I was so stoned or drunk that I blacked out.  I’m missing days cause of some fucking asshole, and a baseball bat.  I figured that this way, I can get back some of those memories back. Maybe get my life in order so I can figure out who I am.  So that I can be my own person.”

I sat down next to Brian and continued to just look out at the ocean.  “Since I was kick out of my parents’ house, I have been moved from place to place.  I’ve always had someone else looking out for me.  Someone else to take care of me.  I don’t know who I am anymore?  What Chris Hobbs did… it changed me.  It changed the way I looked at the world.  Nothing can fix that… nothing will ever be able to let me see the world the same way I did when I was seventeen.  I’ll never have that back.  Bellwether was right in that I have lost my innocence, but he was wrong in saying that you took it from me.  I was as much to blame – no more to blame for it than anyone.  I was the one who had brought it all on myself.  Nothing anyone says will ever make me think otherwise.  I know what I did wrong, and I live with it.”

I see that Brian is about to interrupt, and I know almost exactly what he is going to say, so I decide that I will put that whole little thing to an end.  “Listen, Brian.  We will never agree on who’s fault it is, okay.  You blame yourself, I blame myself, and I KNOW who’s fault it really is,” I say with a small smile.  “In fact I have sort of came to a solid conclusion about that while I’ve been here.  Wanna hear?”

Brian looks at me like I’ve lost my fucking mind, and most likely I have.  “What’s this brilliant revelation?”  I can hear the sarcasm in his voice, and I just shake my head and turn away.  “Alright, damn.  What have you concluded, Justin,” he says a little nicer.

God I love it when I can get him to do things at times.  I turn so that I can look him in the eye, and shrug slightly.  “It’s simple really.  First off I’m to partly blame cause what everything that lead up to it.  If I hadn’t jerked him off, outted him out in front of his friends, got into a fight with him in the locker room… the list goes on and on.  You don’t know half of the shit that I went thought with Hobbs in High School.  You only know parts of it.  I never told anyone all of it – not even Daphne.  So I know that what I did, well it sure as hell didn’t help.  You coming to the Prom didn’t do a thing, Brian.  Hobbs wasn’t on the baseball team, he never played baseball in his life, and I know cause I’ve known him almost all my life.  He had that in his car for a reason, and if you hadn’t been there, I would’ve died that day.  I have no doubt in my mind.  Chris Hobbs wanted to kill me, he wanted to deny what he felt when I jerked him off.  He hated me, and he wanted me out of his life.  So he did what he thought would do that.  The person, or persons really, to blame are Chris Hobbs, his family, and the staff at St. James.  Not you, and not me.”

“You sound so sure of that.  How do you know, how can you be sure that my showing up didn’t … didn’t cause it,” he asked.  I know that this whole thing has torn him up inside since that night.  I understand it… I do in a way.  But I’m not going to let him take the blame for something that wasn’t his fault.

“Cause I know, Brian.  I told you why I know that to be a fact.  You didn’t know everything, and I didn’t want you to know everything.  You being there didn’t cause it… you being there saved my life,” I tell him as I reach for his hand, and hold it in mine.

Brian leaned his head back, and I watched as his hand moved up and pinched the bridge of his nose.  He obviously has a headache, and all this talk about something that clearly no one wanted to talk about isn’t helping matters for him.  Well that and the fact that he most likely just flew in so jetlag must be killing him.  “You’re right,” he began.  Turning to look at me, I know that he’s not agreeing to what I want him to, but I agree to hear him out… well I think I do anyway.  “We won’t be able to agree on that.”

I close my eyes, hating that it’s come to this.  I know what it means, even if he doesn’t.  “Brian,” I begin, not wanting to really restate everything I have been saying for the past fucking hour.  “The thing is, you have to believe that it wasn’t your fault.  You have to or this… whatever it is that we’re… we’re in won’t work.  I won’t be a charity case anymore.  I won’t be with anyone… friend or lover out of guilt.  I have enough of that myself that I can’t deal with anyone else trying to be with me because of it.  That’s the truth.  That’s the way it’s going to be.”

When he didn’t say anything I just shook my head and stood up.  Shaking off the sand from my pants, I take a deep breath.  “I’m glad that you came, Brian.  It was good to see you.  But you know how I’m needing things to be.  Think about it.  Whether we’re friends or lovers, it has to be because it’s what we both want.  It has to be because of something besides guilt.  I won’t deal with that anymore.  I’m tired.”

I left him there that night, sitting on the beach in Italy.  I said what I had to say, what I wanted, and needed to say.  Now it was up to him to decide if he was willing to let go of all of that.  I know for a fact that he blames himself for more than just the bashing.  I know that, and I wasn’t lying when I say that I wasn’t going to deal with it anymore.  If I was ever going to tell him about what I was remembering about the Prom, or about anything else that I was remembering I needed a true friend.  I needed someone who wouldn’t blame themselves for the things that happened in my life.

I needed for once something real.  Something that I could really hang on to.  Something that would keep me warm at night, and chase away the bad dreams.  Someone who I could call when things got too much to handle and I needed to hear a voice of reason.

I needed that for once in my life.  And I was going to work hard to get just that.

I think I deserve it.

I only hoped that Brian was willing to give it a chance, cause I knew that if he said he couldn’t then from this moment on I would never see or talk to him again.  It was time to start looking out for myself.  It was time to do things and ask for things that I wanted – not what I knew would get me just a fraction of what I wanted.  No I think I deserved a break.  Just once.

I deserved to be treated as an equal, and as someone who was worthy of their love and friendship.

Not as some damaged person who needed to always be protected.

I only hoped that Brian would agree, cause I knew that losing him would be the hardest thing to ever overcome.

Looking down at my watch, I see that we still have hours before we land back in the states.  Of course from there we still have to catch the plane back to the Pitts, but that’s still hours away.  I wish to god that I could get some sleep, but just like almost everything else in my life, it’s out of my reach.

Thinking back on that day months ago, I can’t help but wonder how Brian and I got here.  I had told him how things were going to be… how I wanted things to be, how I needed them to be.  I knew that he would need time to think it over.  I never expected him to just run right into my arms and say that he was willing to give me what I need.  That’s just not Brian.  No.  He had so much guilt over what had happened at the Prom, that it wouldn’t just go away in one night… hell it wouldn’t just go away in a couple of days.

I got up the next day, headed to class, and just couldn’t keep my mind on what the hell I was supposed to be doing.  Nothing seemed to sink into my brain.  You know what they say ‘in one ear and out the other’ – well that’s what I felt was happening.  Nothing seemed to want to stick.  So I sat there and just mindlessly took notes.  As long as I get the important stuff down on paper, I can look it over again before any test, when my mind is with me again that is.  Of course I hate to see what exactly I’m writing.  I could only hope that they would all make some sense to me when the time came.

Thankfully, I’m good at taking tests.

When I got out of class, I headed over to Mark’s office.  I didn’t sleep a wink at all last night, cause all I could see was my father, Hobbs, and hell even Brian.  All the things that have gone wrong in my life seemed to haunt me, and I couldn’t get them out.  I wanted just one night to where I could sleep uninterrupted.  One night where I didn’t have to worry about waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat, unable to breathe.  I don’t really know if I’ll ever be able to have that again.

“Justin, how have you been,” he asked me as soon as I took the seat in front of him.  Mark’s office was small, but comfortable.

I look down at my hands, wondering how the hell I was going to even explain what I’ve been feeling.  Seeing Brian the day before, almost killed me.  Not literally, but I felt as if my heart was going to burst out of my chest.  “Brian’s here, in Italy.  He came by my room yesterday.”

“This is the same Brian that was at the Prom with you,” Mark asked.  I can only nod, my throat suddenly unable to work.  I know what he’s going to ask, and I don’t know if it would be possible.  I really don’t.  “Do you think that he’d be able to come here, talk to me?  I think it could help us with trying to decide what’s real, and what’s not.”

I know he’s right, I just don’t know if it’s a good thing.  “Brian doesn’t ever want to talk about it.  He blames himself for what happened, and trying to get him to say anything about it, to open up about it… well let’s just say that it would be easier to hike across Antarctica.”

“Justin,” Mark begins, and I can only sense dread.  “I think he could help.  I think we have covered everything that your friend Daphne knows.  Brian’s the only other person who can really answer the questions that we’re having right now.  He’s the only other person who might know.”

He’s so sure that talking to Brian will help, but in all honesty, I’m not so sure that it will.  Yeah, Brian will – I know – do anything that he can to help me.  He’s always been like that.  The only problem is… what will it do to him?  It may help me, but I guess I’m afraid of what it will do to him.  The things that I’m remembering, or might be remembering will only tear him up inside.  I know that.  I don’t want to cause him pain.  I have NEVER wanted to cause him pain.  Brian has had enough shit in his life that he doesn’t need me to add to it.  No.  I don’t know if I could ask him to do that.

So anyway, after the appointment with Mark, I headed back to my room.  I wasn’t sure if Brian was still around or not, or if he even wanted to continue as we had been.  I didn’t really know much of anything at that moment.  As I walked toward the door I spot an envelop taped to the door.  Immediately I recognize Brian’s handwriting, and I close my eyes.  I don’t know if I’m ready for this stuff… ready for him to shoot me down.

Stepping into my room, I sit down on the bed, and open the letter.

Justin –

Yesterday was not what I had expected when I came here.  Let me tell you that now.  I was so worried about you that I wasn’t sure what was going on.  I guess the thought that you are trying to remember that night… Hell I don’t know what to think about that.  I remember it all, Justin, and I’m not sure I want you to remember it all.  I don’t think that you’re prepared to handle it.

Are you?  Are you sure that you’re ready to remember the entire attack?  Yeah, you can tell me that you want to remember the ‘good’ things, but have you realized that you will also remember the bad as well?  I don’t think you do.

You told me that you wanted me to forgive myself, that I wasn’t to blame for it.  I don’t know if I can.  No matter what anyone says I know what I know.  I froze… I could’ve done something, moved faster, but I didn’t.  I saw Hobbs in the mirror, and I froze.  How can I not blame myself?

You said you didn’t want to be a charity case.  Where the fuck did you get that?  You have never been a charity case, nor have you ever been easy.  I don’t know where we have been heading, but you are NOT a charity case.  You know how I feel about you.  At least you should.  I told you a couple of months ago that if we were together it was because we wanted to be, not because there are locks on the door.  Where the fuck do you get that I was doing something that I didn’t want to do?  Who the fuck are you to tell me that I didn’t want to be with you?

Let me tell you this… fuck you.  If you don’t know then maybe this isn’t worth it.  I don’t have the energy to deal with this shit.  You know who I am.. what I am.  You know how I feel about you.  Don’t tell me you don’t.  What have we been doing these past couple of months that made you even think that I felt sorry for you, or that I thought you were a charity case?  What the hell is going through your mind?

I wanted to say this shit to your face, but I knew that the way things are now… the way I’m feeling right now – nothing would get accomplished.  Something is wrong with you, and it’s more than trying to remember the prom.  If you can’t trust me enough to tell me, to let me help you through it… then we should just walk the fuck away.

I’m not ready to let you walk completely out of my life, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have much of a ‘family’ but you’re a part of it, no matter what.  I do know that I want you in my life.  I want you there beside me.  Whether it’s as a friend or more, I don’t know.  I don’t know what love is, Justin… you knew that from the start.  I’m not ready to change for anyone.  I thought that you understood that I was willing to work on it, but I guess you didn’t.

I’m going to be in town for a couple more days or so.  Give me a day at least to think about this shit.  Then if you want to talk, call me on my cell.

The move is yours Justin.

Brian

I try not to laugh, cause in reality it’s really not funny at all.  But in a way it is.  Brian and I have been doing this dance for a long time now.  Each of us is guilty of trying to force the other’s hand.  Why can’t things just be simple?  That’s easy… it’s Brian and I.  Nothing with either of us is simple.  So now… after I had thrown the ball in his court, he throws it right back to me.  He says it’s my move.

All I had to figure out was if I really wanted to.  I had made myself clear on what I wanted, what I needed.  I’m not ready to just jump into anything with him if I can’t have what I need.  If he couldn’t forgive himself, then there was no point.

But then again, he’s right in a way.  We were together because we wanted to… but the thing was, there was always that underlying feeling of guilt.  Me… I was guilty of thinking that he didn’t give a dam.  He was guilty of a lot, but mostly – and the one that I’m going to focus on first – is that he won’t forgive himself.  Even when he didn’t say anything, and even when things were at their best between us, I always knew.  I always knew that if Hobbs hadn’t done what he did, then Brian and I wouldn’t have gotten together.  If Brian hadn’t been there to witness it, and if he didn’t feel guilty about it, then we never would’ve been together like we were.

Guilt was the reason that we were together.  If it became more, I don’t really know.  I really don’t.  I can tell that he’s willing to try, if he wasn’t then there would be no letter.  He would’ve just left me hanging.  I know that much.

So what was a man to do?

So for the next day or so, I just threw myself in my school – in my art.  I don’t know really if I can face Brian.  I know deep in my heart that we NEED to talk about things, that we need to clear the air, so to speak, but I’m not really sure how to do it.  I know what I want, but I’m not sure if it’s what Brian wants.  So there I was, two days later, sitting on the beach just watching the waves crash upon the rocks, when I felt him behind me.  I couldn’t turn around… I didn’t want to see his face – the look of anger, disappointment in his eyes.

However, my fears were blown away with the wind when I felt his arms wrap around me, and his breath on my neck.  God, I’ve missed this… I’ve missed him.  If I could just spend the rest of my life like this… with his arms around me, I’d be happy.  No more than happy.  “Brian,” I begin, trying to stop the wave of pleasure that is flowing through me.  If I don’t make him stop now, we’ll never get anything covered.  Slowly I turn around and just look him in the eye.  God, I can’t believe I have forgotten how beautiful he is.  Brian is by far the best looking man on the face of the earth.  Not only does he have that raw, honest, in your face beauty, but he also has the inner beauty that can make the straightest man turn.  “I think we need to talk.”

“I thought you were going to call,” he said with a slight smirk.

“I did,” I tell him.  I did call him – just not with the phone.  I called to him in my heart, but I’ll never tell him that.  No, some things are most definitely best kept to myself.  The last thing I want to do is scare him.  I want this to work, I want us to work together.  I don’t want him to be out of my life.  “Is there any chance that you’d ever be able to forgive yourself?  Cause I mean it when I say that I can’t do this if it’s about guilt.  I can’t.”

“Where the fuck did you get that shit from,” he asked me pulling away slightly.  “Charity case?”

“Since I was seventeen,” I began, looking just over his shoulder.  It’s hard for me to look him directly in the eye, especially since he’s just so close.  “Since then, I have been tossed from one place to another.  I have never had a place to call home.  From living with you, to Deb, to the hospital, to my mom, back to you… I’ve never given anything to anyone.  It’s always been someone else’s place, someone else’s stuff.  Never mine, or ours.  You always paid for everything, always.  I was never able to contribute to anything.  I guess that’s why I came up with that.”

“You didn’t have the money, I did.  Hell, Justin, it was only money.  I don’t care about that.  Trust me, you were never a charity case, with any of us,” he told me lifting my chin so I could look him in the eye.  “And if you think that, you better stop that shit right now.”

“It’s true.”

“It’s bullshit.”

I turn away from him so that I can stand.  With my back to him, I close my eyes briefly, trying to calm myself.  It’s not easy, to say the least.  But I know that in order to get to a middle ground between us, then there will have to be some give and take on both of our parts.  “If it’s bullshit, then so is you blaming yourself.  I don’t care what you think… that if you hadn’t paused, as you say you did, then I wouldn’t have been hurt.  You have to realize that if it hadn’t been the Prom, it would’ve been some other day.  And if it had been some other time, you wouldn’t have been there, and I wouldn’t be here now.  That I know for a fact.  So you blaming yourself is bullshit.  Plain and simple.”

Brian doesn’t say anything, and I just know he wants to argue his point.  I like to think that he realizes that it’s pointless.  I’m NOT going to give up on this.  I won’t.  “So why are you going through this memory shit?”

“I want to remember, Bri.  No one knows what it’s like to be missing days out of your life.  No one understands how frustrating it is.  I have weeks!  Between the days before the Prom, then the time I was in a coma.  I know I won’t have shit from the coma, but I need those days before.”  Turning to him, I kneel down in front of him, and take his hands into my own.  “I have to remember those days.  And I know that I will also be remembering the bad along with it, but I don’t care.  I need to remember it all if I’m ever going to move forward.”

“What do you mean, move forward.  Jesus, what have you been doing for the past year,” he asks frustrated.

I know that he’s pissed – that he doesn’t want me to go through with this.  I don’t think I can ever really make him or anyone for that matter, fully understand what it’s like.  I don’t think that anyone can really understand what it’s like to be missing a HUGE part of yourself.  And that’s what it is.  It’s not just memories… it’s Brian and I.  I’m missing the most important moment in our lives together.  I know that if I can remember that fully, then I can never doubt us again.  But I can’t tell him that… he would just tell me that it’s not worth it – that he remembers for the both of us.  “That’s the thing, Brian, I haven’t.  I haven’t moved forward.  There has been this huge part of me that has been stuck in those days before the Prom.  I am still that kid who was at the top of the steps leading down to the backroom, asking you if you’d go.  How did I get from there to waking up?  I need to know.  Maybe there’s something that is in my mind that can explain to me why.”

Brian reached up and began to run his fingers across my cheek.  “Justin, you know why.  Hobbs was a homophobic asshole.”

“I know that, Bri.  But I need to know.  How did Daphne and I work things out?  How did we get from not talking to going to the Prom together?  I already have remembered stuff that no one bothered to tell me, so how much more is there?”  He knows what I’m talking about, and I’m grateful that he doesn’t try to deny it.  “Things that change everything.  How much more is there?”

“I still think you should’ve told us,” he conceded, raising his eyebrow.

“And if it wasn’t you, then it would’ve been mom, or Deb, coming over here and dragging my ass home,” I laugh slightly.  I know that he can’t deny that fact.  “So… where do we go from here?  Will we be able to meet somewhere in the middle?  You know what I want, Bri.  I won’t have it any other way.”

“So if I can’t, as you say, get over my guilt then that’s it?  We just cut our losses?”

“I told you, Brian.  I won’t be with someone out of guilt.  I can’t do that again.  I deserve better than that,” I tell him, even though I know he feels the same way.  I’m not stupid.  I know that he feels that he’s not good enough for me, but that’s something that will take time to change.  I know this, and I’m willing to work on that.  “But I don’t want lose you.  I want you in my life.  You mean so much to me, that I don’t know if I’d survive without you a part of it.  I want you to be there for my first big showing.  I want to do a lot of things.  But I will do that – be without you, if that’s what you want.  I just can’t do the guilt thing.  There’s more than enough to go around between the two of us.  I mean, we wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t screwed up,” I tell him.  I think that – for me anyway – letting him know that I am as much to blame for all of this as he is… if not more, I think that it might make him see that just maybe, we’re worth the fight.

I can see the struggle that he’s going through.  I know that he’s not sure he can give me what I want.  But I guess I realized something.  I realized that I DON’T want to be without him.  And what is relationships without compromise?  Meeting halfway, isn’t that what I said.  “How about this?”  I wait until Brian is look at me before I continue.  “How about you agree to try?  I want us together because we want to be – without guilt, without the past mistakes holding us up.  Do you think that you can at least try?”

Brian’s silent, and I can only hold my breath hoping, praying that he’ll agree.  With every second that ticks by, I feel my hope slipping.  I know I can’t push him… it didn’t work last time, and I don’t want to lose him.  So I guess I’ll just have to wait until he can come around.  I know what I want.  I know what I’ll be willing to wait on.  “Yeah,” he answers quietly.

With that one simple word, I feel elated.  I feel like my heart is going to pound right out of my chest.  God, I do love him.  I love him so much it hurts.  Leaning in, I pause slightly before I get too far.  “It’s not going to be easy.”

“What with us ever is?”

“We still have a lot to talk about,” I tell him, letting him know that he’s not going to get off easy… neither one of us is.

“Later,” he said, closing the distance and pressing his lips against mine.

God, how do I describe our ‘reunion’?  I don’t know if I can, really.  It was hot!  It was like the first time all over again, and I’m not talking only about the actual first time… I’m also talking about the first time we made love after the Prom.  I can’t even begin to tell you how many times he made me cum that night.  For the first time in a long time, I felt that everything would work out.  Somehow, Brian always has a way of making me feel safe and secure.  He has a way of making me feel like I’m on top of the world.

So imagine my surprise when he wants to talk.  Okay, now there’s one thing that you may or may not know about Brian.  He doesn’t like to talk, which you know… but he especially doesn’t like to talk before or after sex especially.  I mean that’s how I normally got him to do all the things I was able to get him to do.  Just ask him something right before sex… right before he enters me, when he’s so horny he can’t think straight.  For the most part I can get anything out of him, just so I will shut up.

So I was surprised that instead of falling asleep he pulls me closer to him, holding me so close that it seems he’s afraid I’ll disappear.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it.  I love the fact that he holds me close to him after we have sex…  no matter how many times he says he doesn’t ‘cuddle’.  But I sure as hell wasn’t expecting him to bring up the same question that he had days ago.  I was kinda hoping that he would forget.  But noooo.  That damn man has the memory of an elephant.  “Want to tell me what the hell those drawings were about,” he asked.

Now I know why he was holding me so close.  It’s not that he was afraid I’d disappear, he wanted to ‘trap’ me so that I couldn’t run away without answering.  Unfortunately I couldn’t pretend to be asleep either.  “Nothing,” I say with my head on his chest.  I so do not want to get into that whole mess with him now.

“Bullshit,” he swore.  Brian placed his hand on my chin and pulled me up so that I could look him in the eye.  He knows that I never wanted to lie to him again, I made that mistake once, and I swore to the both of us that I wouldn’t do that again.  I wasn’t technically lying.  It was nothing… nothing that he should be bothered with that is.  But I know that all he has to do is look in my eye, and he’ll know.  He’ll know that I am so full of shit.  “Justin?”

“Bri,” I begin.  There’s a part of me…deep down, that wants to tell him.  But there’s a bigger part of me that doesn’t want to, that can’t.  We still have a lot to work on that deals with US, and to add to it?  “Can we just leave it for now.  Please?  I promise, in time I will tell you, but not now.  Please,” I beg.

“Justin, something is going on.  Didn’t we promise not to keep shit from each other, all those months ago?  Didn’t you promise that?”

God, I hate it when he’s right.  “And I promise, I will tell you.  Just not now, okay?  Can’t we just concentrate on one thing at a time?  We’ll worry about the rest later.  I just want to be with you for a little longer before you have to go back.  I still have another couple of months here, and I don’t want to ruin this shit now.  I promise, soon.  I’ll tell you everything you want to know soon.”  I lean in and decide to take his mind off of anything dealing with what I’m not telling him.  Slowly I begin to run my hands across his chest, lightly tracing his nipples with my fingers.  “Shouldn’t we be doing something else right now.  We shouldn’t waste time talking when you could be fucking me,” I tell him with a slight smile on my face as my hand moves down his chest toward his hardening cock.  Oh yeah, we most definitely can do some other things together instead of talking.  There were other things I wanted to do with my mouth.

We only had three days together after all.  Soon, Brian would be back in Pittsburgh, and we wouldn’t see each other again for months.  I plan on making the most out of this.

Besides, I think I had learned a thing or two from Brian.  Brian may think that he’s the master of hiding things with sex, but I have become a master in my own right.  Brian’s weakness is sex, and I for one will use what I need to  in order to keep  some things private for the time being.  I wasn’t lying, I will tell him.  But that time is not now.  Someday, but not now.  Now I needed something else entirely.  I needed to feel loved, and wanted.  I needed Brian.  Plain and simple.

Nothing else would do.  
   
 I can say that the hardest thing I had to do was sit there in Mark’s office and listen to him and Brian talk.  Mark wanted me there so I could fill in the blanks… if he missed anything, so we could find out from Brian what was actual memories, and what wasn’t.  Now, imagine me sitting there listening to the man… the man I … I love, okay there I said it.  I do love him, I really do, but I don’t know when and if I’ll be able to give myself to him fully again.  I’m not going to tell him that, but a person can only give so much, and I think I have given Brian so much already that I don’t know what’s left.  Go figure.  I guess I really am screwed up at least a little.  I know I’m a LOT confused, but hey can you blame me?

I never thought in a million years that Brian would voluntarily see a ‘shrink’ but he’s here.  I was so thrilled that it was hard to breathe.  Neither one of us talked much about what happened at the Prom, and when he had… well let’s just say that it wasn’t pretty.  I had never seen Brian lose it as much as I had those times he had tried to help me remember.  The parking garage was terrible… I was scared for him.  I wanted to rip my head open and drag the memories out.  If I could’ve done that to take away his pain, I would’ve.

One of the things that I totally hate right now is that I have to sit here and pray that nothing come out about my other memories.  I hope that Brian won’t mention anything, and I am almost sure… almost – that Mark won’t say anything.  I am not ready for him to know about that.  “Now, I am going to just mention some things that Justin is ‘remembering’ and I just want you to say yes or no.  I am not really looking for actually accounts of things, only if what Justin believes he’s remembering is true.  The less information the better.  Okay,” Mark explained to Brian.

I watch Brian sit back in the chair and nod, his hands laying casually on his lap.  I can tell that he’s not as relaxed as he’s trying to portray.  I guess that’s one thing that you get for being with someone as long as I had been with Brian.  He tries to have this ‘air’ of ‘I-don’t-give-a-shit’ and wants everyone to believe that nothing phases him, but I know better.  Brian cares a lot… about everyone.  I know that he does not want to do this, but he will for me.  Hell I didn’t even ask him if he wanted to… he just told me he would cause it would help, he said.

“Justin has stated that he remembers being the only ones dancing,” Mark stated, and Brian nodded.  “There was a blue light shining, he said that it looked like the lights at your loft,” he said with a raise of his eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Brian said with a small smile on his face.

“He said that he thinks he was pushed against the jeep.”

I see Brian tense a little, so slight that I don’t know if anyone would be able to catch it.  I wonder what it is about that memory that has him so worried.  “Yeah,” he says calmly, not allowing his discomfort show in his voice.

“You had made plans to meet back at the loft, so that Justin could take Daphne back home, is that right?”

Brian nodded, and I just know that he fighting it… he’s trying hard not to remember, and it’s crashing in toward him.  I can see it.  His eyes are dancing all over the place, his body may appear calm, but I can see the tightening in his neck.  “Can we do this another time,” I ask wanting to do anything to ease Brian’s pain.

Mark looks over at me, disappointed.  “Justin, you know that this is the only way we can be sure that the memories are correct.  Brian agreed to do this, so have you.  This maybe our only chance,” Mark said softly.

“I know that,” I quietly say.  “I’m just saying that we might want to do this another time.  Brian isn’t here for that long, and we kinda bum-rushed him.  He’s not really prepared for this.  He was a fucking victim too,” I finally say with a slightly raised voice.

“Justin,” I hear Mark begin.

“It’s okay,” Brian interrupts.  “And I’m fucking here, so you don’t have to talk about me like I’m not.”  Brian looks at me as he says that, and I just close my eyes and take a deep breath.  “Yes, that was the plan,” he answered the original question.

“And that’s when Mr. Hobbs came out to attack Justin,” Mark asked.

“Yes,” Brian whispered.  I am trying so hard to NOT scream for Mark to stop.  I can almost taste the blood from biting my lip – the coppery taste flowing down my throat.

“Justin was walking away, and you yelled for him.  Hobbs then attacked, right?” Brian nodded.  I wanted to say something so bad.  Brian already knows that I remember that.  That part isn’t in question.  Mark looks at me and I try to take a deep breath so that I don’t suddenly lash out at him.  I want so badly to stop this, and I can only hope that the opportunity will appear.  “Is there anything else you remember Justin?”

I shrug.  “Some things… but nothing more that Brian can help with right now.”

I see Brian look over toward me, I guess he doesn’t believe me, and frankly I KNOW he can’t help me with these.  I know it.  “What things,” Brian asks quietly.

I shake my head slightly, trying to appear all non-chalant about it.  I don’t want to bring up that old mess either, but since I have two sets of eyes looking at me, I know I have to say something.  “Just stuff that I think happened at the hospital.  While I was there… and stuff.  Nothing that you’d know about,” I say.  I hope that I didn’t let any resentment show in my voice.  I almost can’t believe that I’m still pissed that he never showed up to see me once!  I have tried to get over that… to say that it was only Brian.  He was in a lot of pain too, and it must have tore him up even thinking of being there.  Seeing me laying in a hospital bed, unconscious.  Just one more thing that I have tried to bury deep within my psyche.  Please don’t let them try to bring any of that up.  “So we done,” I ask turning to Mark.

Mark nodded, and we set up another appointment to try and go over the other stuff.  I walk out of the room, and Brian tells me that he will be out soon.  He wanted to ask Mark something, and I want to pull Brian out of there.  I don’t know what I’m more afraid of… Brian asking questions about the Prom, or trying to find out what else I may be hiding.

I know, I shouldn’t be thinking that.  Brian wouldn’t try to betray me like that… but then again, it’s exactly what he would do.  He’s always tried to protect me, and if there was something that could hurt me, he would do anything to try and stop it.  That’s just the way he is.  I love him and hate him for it.

When Brian came out he grabbed my hand and we left the building.  He knows that I’m just dying to ask him what he talked about, but I keep silent.  I’m not going to pester him.  I have grown up enough.  I know what he’s doing, and although I don’t like it, I respect it.  He’s doing what he feels he has to do… and when he’s ready he’ll tell me.  I am NOT going to ask… no way… but damn is it hard.  I can feel it just inching away inside of me… waiting at the tip of my tongue to come out.  But I won’t.  Hell no.

“You going to ask me what I was talking about with Mark,” he asked me.

God I could just fucking kill him.  I’m trying NOT to say anything and here he goes a head and tries to open up a door.  “No,” I say.  “It’s none of my business.  As long as you weren’t discussing my ‘case’ then I don’t care.  It doesn’t effect me, so why should I care.”

“Liar,” he laughed.  “You’re just dying to know,” he said as he stopped and stood in front of me.  “You want to know… it’s just waiting to come out, isn’t it Sunshine?”

I look him in the eye and give him a small smirk.  “No, it’s not.  And … fuck you.”

“What’s that for,” he asks as he places his arms over my shoulder.

“Just what I said.  Fuck. You.  You think you’re so smart.  That I will just beg, and plead until I get it out of you.  Well for your information, I don’t care.  You could’ve fucked him in there, and it would’ve been none of my business.”  Brian raised his eyebrow at that remark, and I know that he’s trying not to call me a liar again.  What I told him is the truth… for the most part.  I don’t care.  I am not going to ask, if for nothing else than he expects me to.  I can be stubborn too.

Brian laughed at me, then took my hand as we walked down the street heading back toward his hotel room.  I guess I should be lucky that it’s the weekend, and I don’t have classes today.  I want to be with him, but I’m almost afraid that the longer I’m with him, the harder it will be to keep my secret.

Everything was good for the remainder of the day, and almost all of the next.  It was our last night together when he finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.  I know it’s just been tearing him up – the not knowing – since the day I saw him on my bed at the dorms.  I was sound asleep, but I could feel myself start to waken as I reached out toward Brian, and noticed his side of the bed was empty.  Getting out of bed, I pulled one of the sheets around my body and walked into the living area.  “Bri,” I quietly asked not wanting to startle him.  “Is everything okay?”

Brian’s just sitting on the couch, sipping from his drink.  It looks like he’s reading something, what I don’t know.  I mean it’s not like I really have a wide selection of things to read here… only my school books.  As I moved closer to the couch, I immediately realize that he’s not reading anything \--  He’s looking at my sketch book.  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing,” I ask him as I reach over and take the book out of his hands.

Brian looked up at me, trying to look innocent.  If it’s one thing that I know… Brian is anything but innocent.  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said as explanation.  By the look on my face, he knows that I’m not going to buy that excuse.  We just stand there, staring at each other for what seems like forever.  Finally having enough, I just shake my head and head back toward the bedroom.  I really need to get out of here before I blow up at him.  I am so pissed at that moment that I can’t even breathe.  “Justin,” he calls out to me.

Picking up my jeans from the floor, I start to pull them on – not even bothering to look at him.  I can’t look at him – just the sight of him right now makes me sick.  “Don’t even start, Brian.  You had no right to go through my personal shit.  I thought we had covered this shit already… but I guess I was wrong.”

“Then fucking explain to me what the fuck is going on,” he yells as he grabs a hold of my arm.  I look him in the eye, just wanting to spit right in his face.

“Look, I don’t have to explain anything to you, Brian.  You just have to accept that there are some things that you can’t fix… some things that I have to take care of on my own,” I tell him as I pull my arm out of his.

“Just fucking tell me!”

Closing my eyes, I sit down on the edge of the bed.  “It’s something that I don’t know if I can really talk about.  I still haven’t been able to process it myself… how can I explain it to anyone else.  I don’t even know what really happened.”  I lean forward and put my head in my hands, trying to come up with something… ANYTHING.  The anger from before has just completely left me, and all I want to do is go back to bed.

Brian slowly runs his hand up and down my back, trying to help calm me.  “Maybe I can help…  Just tell me what is going on.”  Brian put his hand under my chin and lifted it so we were eye to eye.  “I’m sure nothing can be as bad as what is going through my mind, Justin.”

Taking a deep breathe, I stand and walk over to the window.  “I wouldn’t be too sure, Bri.  There are things that have happened… that I’m finding out that happened that can blow even you’re mind, I’m sure.”  I can feel him behind me, so I turn to face him.  Not wanting him too close, I lean up against the wall, and cross my arms over my chest.  “I don’t even know it all myself… it’s just pictures, feelings that I get.”  I close my eyes, and will the tears from falling.  I don’t want to seem weak… I don’t want him to try and come to the rescue.  “Since I started with Mark… I’ve been… remembering, I guess you could say, some things that I don’t know if I can really explain to myself even.”

Brian moved over so that he could lean up against the wall next to me.  I move a little farther away, not able to deal with him right now, and I can see the hurt quickly appear and disappear in his eyes.  I don’t mean to hurt him… it’s just that this isn’t easy for me, and having him close by – well THAT close is not something that I want to deal with – that I can deal with.  “Tell me.”

“You know, I wanted to wait… need to wait.”  I turn slightly so that I can look at him.  “Brian… this is something that I have to figure out.  As I said… I’m not even sure if it’s real, or if I watched one too many After School Specials,” I laugh slightly.  Brian didn’t laugh, and I only wish that he wouldn’t push this issue… but I know that there’s no way that this won’t happen.  “You’re not going to let this slide for now, are you?”

“Nope,” he informed me – not that I didn’t expect any other answer besides that one.

Taking a deep breathe I walk over to the discarded sketchbook.  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I look over the sketch of one of the images that has haunted me for months.  “Fine, but keep in mind, I don’t know if it’s real or not.  I don’t know what’s real anymore really,” I quietly add.  “I’m sure you already have an idea what it means… I mean, it’s not hard to figure out really.  I guess… I guess I know why my dad never could get over the fact that I’m gay,” I tell him.  I hope to god that he understands what I’m trying to say without me getting into detail.  Not that I think he will let me of the hook like that, but I silently pray.

“Oh I have an idea,” he told me as he sat down on the other side of the bed.  “I need you to tell me.  Cause I can tell you, what’s going through my mind right now…”

See what I mean?  I knew he wouldn’t let me off.  Fuck me.  Okay, I guess I had better start from the beginning.  Maybe if I do that, then he will catch on without me actually saying what it is.  It’s stupid I know – not being able to say it out loud.  I can say it in my mind… well for the most part I can – but it’s something else to say it out loud.  It’s like it will make it real.  There’s no going back after that.  Mark had been trying to get me to say it since the first time I had mentioned it.  I just don’t know if I can.  “Fine, but if I’m going to do this.. you have to promise me somethings first.”

Brian looks at me and shrugs, “like what?”

Well at least he didn’t yell at the idea.  “Okay,” I begin.  “I need you to not say anything, nothing.  This … it isn’t easy and if you interrupt, I may not be able to finish.”

Brian rolls his bottom lip into his mouth, thinking it over.  “Fine,” he agrees.  “And?”

I turn to face him and reach over to take his hand into my own.  “Just two .. no three more things really.  I need to you stay right there… don’t move.  Don’t try to comfort me… nothing.”

I can see the fear begin to rise in his eyes, and I know that it will be difficult for him to do.  He has never liked to see me hurt, he HATES to see me hurt in any way – so if he thinks that I’m in pain he’ll do whatever he has to do.  The funny thing is, that is the easiest request I’m going to give.  “Okay,” he said as he moved to sit back against the headboard of the bed, far enough away to not touch, but close enough I can still feel him there.

“No matter what I say, no matter what, you’ll still get on that plane tomorrow,” I tell him.  He agrees without real thought.  I know that he’ll regret this promise the most – there’s no doubt in my mind.  “Lastly, you have to promise me that you won’t do a thing about what you hear.  You won’t try to get revenge, or confront anyone… nothing.  I mean it, Brian.  If I find out that you did anything that’s it… it’s over.”

“What the fuck is all this shit about,” he asks.

“Do you promise,” I ask him.  I need this one thing from him.  I need his word.

“Fine! Yes!  Now what the fuck is going on?  What does your father have to do with this,” he practically yells.

“Mark told me of the dangers of trying to get my memory back,” I begin.  “He said that once I open the door that not only will what I want come out… but things… other things that I don’t remember will most likely come out too.  Since you can’t pick and choose what memories come out, you kinda have to go with the flow.  I didn’t know… I guess I never thought that it would turn out like this.”  I stand and make my way over to the window.  I love where Brian’s hotel is… right on the beach.  I try to take the peace of the ocean into me so I can maybe get through this.  “I think I have finally figured out WHY my dad hates that I’m gay so bad… I think he blames himself.”

I turn toward him on the bed, and shake my head.  “You know there are studies proving that very thing,” I tell him.  “Some fanatics say that if a child is…if someone is a … fuck!”  I take a deep breathe and run my hands through my hair.  “Why is this so hard to say?  I mean it isn’t a hard word… so it should be easy, right?  It’s not going to make it any more real, or not real with a word… so why is it so hard,” I ask out loud.  Not that I expect him to fully understand, I know he’s thinking of something to say – something to make it easier for me.

I move back over the bed, and throw the sketchbook toward Brian.  “Those pictures are real… at least I think they are.  My da… Craig used to come into my room after Mom was asleep.  That book shows what I remember… if it’s true.  That’s what he … what I think he did.  That’s what I can’t say,” I tell him.  I watch him turn on the light next to the bed, and flip through the pages of the book.  I never wanted anyone to look at my private books -- there are some things that I just want to keep private… but I don’t know if I can actually say it.  I can’t say it.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and watch different emotions flash across Brian’s face… anger, revulsion, sadness, you name it.. he thought it.  “I haven’t told anyone yet… I need to try and find out if it is real first.  I need to try and understand,” I explain to him as he looks at the pictures.  I don’t even have to know which picture he’s looking at… they are all ingrained in my mind.  I see them every single night when I close my eyes.  I feel what that little boy felt back then.  A part of me wants to stay detached… that way I can pretend it’s someone else that it happened to.  I know that it’s a stupid thing to do, but the few times I’ve tried to think about it as if it was me and not someone else… I lose it.  I just totally shut down.  I have had people tell me that they would see me just sit there for hours – staring out at nothing.  I would snap out of it, and not believe that I have missed hours of my life.

It’s just too much, most of the time… thinking about it.  I know I can’t deal with it.  I’ve tried and I’ve failed.

People like to think that I’m strong, that I can deal with anything.  I guess I’ve found the one thing that I CAN’T deal with.  The one thing that I don’t know if I can ever forgive or get past.  “You understand now?  I have to try and figure this out, Brian.  For my own sanity – on my own.”

“Let me help,” he quietly states.  “Justin, you’re not alone.”

I can hear the pain in his voice… the need to fix things and make them right again.  I shake my head.  “There’s nothing that you can do, Brian.  This is between Craig and I… and mom.  I have to try and handle this myself.  I can’t have you interfere… it will only make things worse,” I tell him.  Looking down at my hands, I think about who I have… who I can trust.  “I am alone, Brian.  Everyone that I thought…”  I can feel the tears start to build behind my eyes, and I curse myself for letting this get to me.  I swore to myself that I wouldn’t allow that.  I take a deep breath and stare down at my hands.  “No one can understand… no one knows.  Hell I don’t understand!  I don’t understand how the one person who I trusted with my life… who I loved unconditionally could do that!  I don’t understand how I could forget something as important as him fucking molesting me!  How could I try so hard to get him to accept me when he did that to me?!”

I let the tears fall… I can’t stop them.  I feel Brian move across the bed, and slowly wrap his arms around me.  “How?  Why,” I quietly cry as I lean my head into his chest and wrap my arms tightly around him.  “Why?”

Brian doesn’t say anything.  He just pulls me down with him onto the bed and holds me.  I try to concentrate on the feel of his hand running up and down my back.  I try to NOT think about anything but him holding me.  Finally after what seems like forever, I allow myself to fall asleep in his warmth.  I’ll deal with the rest later.  Now… now I just want to forget everything, and pretend that life is good.

I’ll deal with everything else tomorrow.

Brian left that morning, and I was never happier than I was at that moment.  Things the night before got more than a little crazy… I told him things that I didn’t want to tell him.  I guess I finally figured out that when it comes to Brian Kinney, I’m not as strong as I’d like to believe I am.  He always has a way of tearing down my walls, opening me wide open.  Fuck, I hate him for that, but I love him for it too.  I know, it’s sad.  Having someone who is so much a part of you… who is everything to you – well, it’s not easy.

Who knows what he’ll do with the information he now has.  I don’t like to think about how much control he now has over me.  He always tells me that he hates giving me control, but he doesn’t realize how much control he has over me.  I don’t know if he will ever realize that, and honestly, I don’t want him to.

Of course, before he got on the plane I made him promise to me again that he wouldn’t do anything with the information he now has.  He is NOT to see my father… he is NOT to do anything.  I had to do this on my own, without his interference.  If he was to try and step in, and I find out that it’s not true… hell,  there goes any chance of me having a family.  So he did promise… albeit very reluctantly.  I’m just glad that I got a promise out of him.  I have never known him to break a promise yet.

So I was sitting in my room that night, just thinking.  Wondering where Brian and I stood –and if anyone can figure that out they deserve a fucking medal.  I was wondering what I was going to do to try and get the truth.  Do I talk to my mom, see if she knows anything?  I mean, there is no guarantee that she even knew if it was true… and if it is, then who’s to say that she will actually tell me.  This is one big fucking mess and I am at a loss as to what to do.

Brian called telling me he made it in safely, and asked me what he could do to help.  Of course I told him that he couldn’t do anything.  This was my fight, and the ‘great Brian Kinney’ didn’t need to come to the rescue.  I had only a month and a half left here before I head back and I would work things out when I got there.  I know he wasn’t happy, but that’s the way it goes, right?

So sitting here on the plane, with him next to me – a month and a half… almost two months later, I still don’t know what I’m going to do.  He came the week before school got out, and we spent another week just being tourists.  I felt relaxed.  It was nice.  Being with Brian… seeing everything that Italy had to offer – it was like a dream come true for me.  I only wish that we could have stayed there longer.

I think that the best night… or at least the night that most was accomplished was two nights ago.  We had just gotten back to the hotel after a night of just exploring the small town, when he had asked the question I wished he hadn’t.

“So… when we get back, we’ll just move your things back to the loft.”  Okay, so asking would be a little TOO nice, but this IS Brian we are talking about.  He just doesn’t ask… he sort of decides and expects you to follow along.  Yeah right.

I turned to look at him as I was getting ready for bed, with my shirt half way over my head.  “Say what?”

“I said, we’ll get your stuff from your mom’s this weekend so that you’ll have it for you at the loft.” He told me making it sound like he was talking to a child.

“Like hell, Brian!” I yell.  I pull off my shirt and throw it into one of the chairs.  “Who’s to say that I’m moving back into the loft?  I don’t recall ever saying that.”

Brian just shook his head like I’m crazy and turned his back and began to undress.  “Look, Justin. Where else are you going to stay?  At your mom’s?  Please, you’d go crazy within a day.  You don’t have the money to get your own place, so it only makes sense that you’d move back in.”

“Have you ever thought that I might already have a place lined up?  Did you?” I yell.  God, there are times in my life when I wonder why the HELL I ever put up with him.  He’s so infuriating that it’s unbelievable.  Always demanding, always needing to be in control.  Ahh!  I could rip my hair out at times talking to him.

“Yeah, right.  And where would this place be?” He asked not believing a word I have said.  Ohhh, how I want to kill him.

I turn toward him with a smile on my face.  “For your information, I’m thinking of moving in with Daphne.”  Okay… so that’s not entirely true.  I haven’t actually confirmed it with Daph yet… hell we haven’t even really talked about it.  We have talked about the possibility of it, but that’s it.  I guess a little stretching of the truth, but what does he expect?

“Right.” he says rolling his eyes.  Ohhh what I wouldn’t do to just rip those eyes out of his head right now.  “I can see that.  ‘You’d go crazy there too.’

“Like living with you wouldn’t drive anyone insane.” I mumble.  God, I really hate him at times.

“What did you say?” He asked.  A part of me was wishing he hadn’t heard me, but I guess that’s just one more thing to add to the list.  Yes, I have an ever-growing list of things that I have fucked up on.

Oh well, I’m not backing down.  Not now.  I think I’ve come too far to try and hide what I think and what I feel.  Brian’s going to learn that I won’t be pushed around anymore.  I can’t.  For my own sanity – which I need right now – I’ve made a pact with myself to not let things lay… to say what’s on my mind.  So what the hell, I guess it’s time to bite the bullet, right?  “I said that living with you would drive anyone insane.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me?  You lived with me, and you were fine.” He said in defiance.

Ohhhh he really shouldn’t have said that.  God why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone?  Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly.  “Brian, we both know that you are NOT an easy person to live with.  Between the tricks and the constant ‘this is my home’ shit… it gets a little boring.  I’m not saying that everything was bad.  We had some good times, but Jesus don’t you think it’s time to grow up and get some balls?”  I watch as Brian’s eyes darken… I can almost feel the anger rise within him.  “You always do what people expect you to do.  Everyone thinks that you’re a selfish piece of shit who doesn’t care about anyone but yourself, so you do everything in your power to prove that they are right.  To hell with what you want, what you feel.  You will always be ‘Brian Kinney, King of Liberty Avenue’.  Well I’m not like you, Brian.  I never have been.  I need the romance… even if it’s just one fucking night a month.  I need to know that I am something more than just a convenient fuck.”

I turn and sit down in the chair across from him.  “I know that I wasn’t that to you… but I’m telling you how I feel.  You’ve always complained that I just let things happen, that I never stand up for myself.  Well I’m doing that.  I can’t live with you, Brian.  I don’t know if I ever will.  I want… no, I need someone who only wants me.  Someone who is not afraid to show that they care, and who is willing to share their life with me.  I want to be with someone who I can share things with.  I want to be an active partner in a relationship.  I haven’t been that.  I have failed in things too… more so than you.  But I now know what I need… and I know that the way things are now, I won’t get those from you.”

“So what?  That’s it?” Brian asks, shocked at what I was saying.  Of course as usual he doesn’t understand.  Okay, so I’m not really explaining myself that well, but I’m trying.  “So once again you decide how things are going to be.  I fucking thought we covered that shit already.  You were okay with it.”

“I …” I begin.  Knowing that I am NOT getting across what I want to say, I take a deep breath, trying to get my thoughts in order.  “That’s not what I’m doing, Brian.  I told you before, when we first started this shit a few months ago, I’m not ready to give you up.  I want to be with you one way or another.  But I won’t, I can’t live with you until I know that it means something.  I need that.  My life these past couple of years have been hell.  It’s been turned upside down and inside out.  I NEED to have something more.  I can’t go on living the way I have been.  I know that now.  I know now that I can have what I want… what I need.  I don’t have to rely on anyone.  I’ve come so far this past year.  I grew up, and I understand things better now.  It was something I had to do for myself.”

I move over to sit next to him on the small couch, and reach for his hand.  Holding it in my own, I look up into his eyes.  “Brian,” I begin again. “I know that I don’t need anyone to take care of me.  I can do it on my own.  If I take the step and move in with someone it will be on equal ground.  I have to be able to support, or help support the person I’m with.  If I can’t do that, then there’s no point in having a relationship.  Everything will be one sided and it will be doomed to fail.  I won’t have that.  I’m not saying that we can’t go on like we have been.  I’ll have my place, and you will have yours.  We can see each other, spend time with each other.  Hell, I’ll even spend a couple of nights with you, but I can’t live with you every day and every second.  Not until things are more equal… and not until you’d be willing to be with me and only me.

“Now, I can live with the way things are now.  I can.  Yes, I want more, but I also know that if things stay this way, I won’t feel the need for more.  If I live with you, then that need that I have will grow… it will destroy us.  I won’t do that again.  It happened once and I won’t put either of us through that again.  It’s easier this way.  If in time you think that you can give me what I need, what I want then yes, I will move in.  But until then… I can’t.”  Having said everything that I wanted to, I can only look down at our hands.  He doesn’t know how much I would LOVE to move in with him.  I will never tell him that.  He will never know how much I want to be in a full relationship with him.  But I wasn’t lying when I say that I would take things are they are now.  It’s that whole catch-22.  Either I let him live his life the way he wants, and have what little bit I can get.  Or I force what I want on him and lose him forever.  Since I can’t live without him, I just have to put my dreams on hold.  It may be forever, but for Brian I am willing to wait.

God I hope that I don’t have to wait too long.

Brian didn’t say much that night, and I didn’t push him.  There are just some things that I can’t push onto people.  You can’t make people change, you can’t force them to change their ways.  They have to want to do it on their own, for their own reasons.  If you force someone to do something they don’t want to do, they will resent you.  I don’t want that.  I never wanted that.  It would kill me.

Of course, he still hasn’t given up the hope that I will move back in.  He still wants to leave that door open.  Actually I’m happy that he is, even if he is annoying the fuck out of me.  I mean he told me to keep it in mind, and I will.  But as long as he realizes why I won’t, I think we will be okay.  At least I hope so.

Now, only an hour away from home and Brian sound asleep next to me I let my mind wonder.  Yeah like I haven’t done enough of that shit on this flight right?  Anyway, I often wonder what things would’ve been like… if only.  ‘If only I could pretend that none of this happened?’ ‘If only I could go on like I had before?’ ‘If only my father had not done it…’ Did they every really love me?  Or was I just a tool?

I don’t think that I can ever answer those questions.  I don’t know if there are any answers, nor will there ever be answers.  It’s just a long line of unanswered questions that I will have to deal with.  I’m scared shitless about going home… well back to Pittsburgh.  I haven’t had a HOME in years really.  What will everyone think?  Will they know that some thing is different about me?  Will they know me anymore?  Have I changed so much that they won’t want to be around me?

Stupid questions, but it’s shit that is going through my head and I can’t put it to rest.  I wish that I could relax enough to get some sleep.  But for some reason, I think that sleep will be a long time in coming.  It’s my curse now… unfortunately.

Running, no sleep, work, art… my daily regiment.  My life.  Fuck, I am pitiful.  Brian says that everything will work out, and I hope that he’s right.  I, however, am a realist.  Things – for me at least – have never been easy, and to say that my life has been crazy would be a little understatement.  Okay a HUGE understatement.  But I want things to work out.  I really do.

I know that Brian isn't happy with my choices, but for once I'm going to do what I (think) is best for me.  I can't listen to what others think I should or shouldn't do.  I need to take care of myself for once.  I need to know I can do it on my own.  I only hope that I can.

In three hours I’ll be back there.  I will be face to face with my past… a past that I have tried hard this past year to come to terms with.  I don’t know if I ready for that.  I don’t know if I’m ready to face the truth of what happened, and how things will change.  Cause they will change, I know this.  You just don’t go up to your father and accuse him of fucking up your life… of taking something from you that he had no right to take.  You don’t go to your mother and tell her that she failed in protecting her child.

I have to however.  I have to do that for my own sake.  I have to face this so I can go on with my life.  What my life will be like in the coming years?  Hell, I have no idea.  This is a new road for me, a road that I never thought I would have to follow.  Whether it will be traveled with my family or not won’t matter.  As long as Brian is there with me, I know that I can make it through.  I have to.  I will survive this, and I will come out of this in one piece.  I know I will.

If for nothing else than it’s what I have to do.

The minute I walk into the loft, I go to the phone and dial Daphne’s number.  I really need to talk to her, and see if her offer from before still stands.  Brian brings our bags in and takes them up to the bedroom.  I hope like hell that he isn’t going to try and be smart by putting my stuff away too.  If he does… well I guess I’ll just deal with that when and if it happens.  I get her voicemail, and I can almost feel my heart sink.  As much as I love Brian, I really don’t want to be here.  The longer I stay in this loft, the more I will want to stay forever.  I think he knows that, and I can almost bet he’s counting on it.  “Daph, it’s me.  Look, call me as soon as you get this.  I’m at the loft now.  I need to try and get another cell later today, but just leave a message if I’m not here.  Call me, okay?  Thanks.  Bye.”

I close my eyes, and try to clear the cobwebs that are forming in my brain.  God, I’m so fucking tired, but I want to get settled in at Daph’s before I call it a night.  I feel Brian’s hands start kneading the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders, and I instantly want to allow the comfort and just sleep.  “Daphne’s not home?” He asks.

“No, but I told her to call here when she gets in.” I tell him.  Like he doesn’t already know any of that, since I’m sure he had heard every word.  Just the feel of his hands on my skin, and the feel of the muscles starting to release is just too good to pass up.  I want ot get lost in the feeling, but I know I can’t.

“Why don’t you lay down for a little while.  You didn’t sleep at all on the flight, and you fucking look exhausted.” He tells me.  Like I don’t know.

Shaking my head, I pull away from him, and move toward the couch.  “I can’t.  There’s too much to do, and I might as well get started on all this shit.”

Brian moves to sit down next to me, leaning forward so his elbows – looking like he’s struggling with something.  And I don’t doubt that he is, but right now, I’m not sure that there’s anything I can do to change it.  “Justin,” he begins, and I just KNOW what he’s going to say.  I start to say something, but the look he gives me stops anything that would come out.  “You need to take a break.  You don’t fucking have to do everything this second.  Take a break before you collapse.  You’re exhausted, I can tell.  So either you’ll go over there and rest or I’ll carry your ass there and make you.”

I want to argue with him, tell him that he can’t make me do anything I don’t want to.  I know that it would be a lie though.  Brian can make me do things that I never thought I would do.  I know that it’s not an empty threat.  Damn him.  Nodding, I simply begin to lay down on the couch.  I really don’t want to go up to the bed, for a lot of reasons.  One being that it’s just too damn far, and the couch is right here.  The other being the fact that… you know.  If I go up there, I feel that I may never come back down.  Fuck I’m so pathetic at times, but I’m just too damn tired to worry about it now.  “Justin,” Brian says.  I look over at him and he points toward the bed.  “Now.”

“Brian,” I exclaim.  I really don’t want to.  If he would have said this two weeks ago, I would have been fine.  But now… my resolve to be a man, and make something of myself on my own has been slipping.  It’s all because of him, because of what he lets me feel.  I feel safe with Brian, something that I haven’t felt in a long time.  I don’t want to get comfortable.  I have a plan, and I just have to stick to it.  Deciding that I had to prove something to the both of us, I stand and make my way toward the bedroom.  I can do this, I know I can.  Once I get some sleep, my resolve will be fortified, and I can do this.  I crawl under the sheets, and look up at him.  “Happy?”

Brian just shakes his head as he goes about unpacking.  For the first time in what seems like days I finally close my eyes.  The next thing I remember is waking up feeling Brian lightly running his hand over my arm.  He’s learned not to wake me suddenly since I tend to strike out.  I roll over to look at him, trying to get the sleep out of my eyes.  “Daphne,” he says as I see the phone in his hand.

Stretching, I reach out for it, and sit up.  “Thanks.”  I try to shake the sleep out of my head as I try to remember why Daphne would be calling.  I hate the confusion that always sets in the minute you wake up, right before reality sets in.  “Hey,” I say into the phone, knowing now why she would be calling.

“Hey, so you’re back?”

“Yeah.  Just got in a couple of hours ago.”  I watch as Brian moves out of the bedroom, allowing me some privacy.  I don’t know if he’s upset, or not… but the stiffness in his shoulders as he makes his way down the stairs tells me that he’s not pleased with this.  He knows what I’m going to do and he still feels that I should just stay here.  “Look, what I was wondering is.. well if the offer to move in was still available.”

“Are you kidding?  Of course it is… you know I’d never turn you away.” Yeah, I do know that.  Daphne is not like anyone else in my life… she has always stuck by me… well almost always, but I won’t even go there.  I really don’t know what I would have done without her.  She stuck by me through this whole mess with Brian… giving me rides, covering for me with my parents.  She helped me with the mess at St. James, everything – hell even with dealing with the Prom.  I don’t ever want to know what life would be like without her.  “So when do you want to move in?”

“When can you take me?” I laugh.  I finally feel like things just may work out.  Hell with the year… scratch that.. the past couple of years I’ve had I fucking think I deserve something.  “Really, I can move in whenever you’re ready.  I’m going to check with Deb and see if my old job is still available.  She said it would be, but you know…”

“Ahhh, work.” She play yelled.  We both laughed, and I can only shake my head.  I feel sorry for anyone who comes by that place after I move in.  Daphne and I can get a little … well a little weird.  But I need that… I need fun, and playful.  I need to be able to relax and not worry about this or that.  I need to be able to act like a kid at times.  Being grown-up sucks.  Brian told me once to enjoy my youth.  Well that’s what I finally plan on doing.  I will enjoy living with Daphne… experiencing all that college life has to offer.  Hell anything has got to be better than sitting here wondering why my father fucking did what he did.

Shit!  I haven’t really told Daphne about it.  Yeah, I sort of touch on it, but nothing too major.  I haven’t told her everything that I remember, but she does know that I remember SOMETHING about my dad.  Dad—what a fucking joke.  Knowing what I know now… what I think I know – I might as well be correct about it – I don’t think I can ever think of his as dad ever again.  He was the sperm donor.

Daphne tells me I can start moving in this weekend.  She said it will give her time to clean it up and clear out the spare room.  There isn’t much space in there, and only a small daybed, but I’m not real picky right now.  All I need really is a roof over my head.  That’s what I need.  A sense of belonging.  Is Brian upset?  Yes.  There is no doubt in my mind that he is.  He’s upset that I am choosing to live with Daphne and not with him.  No matter how many times I have explained to him WHY I have to do this… he won’t believe it.  Brian always wants to fix things, but he can’t fix this.

I slowly wake the next morning and feel this weight on top of me.  I have missed this during my time in Europe.  I have missed Brian sprawled out on top of me… engulfing me.  I missed him.  I feel a little bad that I fell asleep last night without so much as a good-night kiss, but I was just too damn tired.  Between the trip, the jetlag… and everything else this past year – I think it’s finally catching up with me.

Of course I love this the most.  This is the Brian that no one else sees – no one else is privileged to see.  See when Brian is asleep, he lets his guard down completely.  His hair is a mess, the little bit of drool falling on my chest, and him completely surrounding me.  This is the Brian I love… the one that allows me to remember why I love him so much.

See I didn’t really fall in love – real love, not the shit from before and right after the bashing, but real love – with the brash, up-front, take-no-prisoner’s Brian.  I feel in love with the gentle Brian.  The one that only I see.  I should feel lucky that he’s willing to share that part of himself with me.  I do… really I do.  I love him with all my heart, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.  The only thing is… he needs to realize that for himself.  He needs to realize that he wants me the same way.  He needs to be able to give in and just let things ride.

I can’t help but wonder what will come of today?  Should I go see my mom?  Should I attempt to see my dad?  What the hell would I say to them?  I slip out of Brian’s arms and walk over to the window and pull out my cigarettes.  I need to think… plan what I’m going to do next.  I need to know where I stand with things.  It seems like my whole life right now is just spinning out of control and I don’t know where it will take me.

The only thing that seems to be going right is my living with Daphne.  Well that and – for the most part – Brian.

Of course, it's harder than I thought it would be.  I still haven't been able to see mom, and seeing the gang again... At times I wonder why I ever came back.  Then I look at Brian, and I know I made the right choice.  I made the right choice in coming here with him and not staying in Italy.  I could only hide from my past, from my life a while.  Things have a way of catching up with you, that’s for sure.

I hear Brian crawl out of bed, and feel his arms wrap around my shoulders.  His hand reaches for my cigarette, and I watch as he inhales, then slowly release it into the air.  “You’re still thinking too much.” He tells me as he hands me back the butt.

I slowly put it out in the ashtray, and lean back into him.  His arms wrap tighter around my body, and I know I can take comfort in him.  “I’m just trying to decide if I want to go see my ol’ man today.  Or maybe go and see my mom.  I don’t know.”

“Are you ready to deal with that shit now?  Don’t you think you should get settled in first?” Brian asked me laying his head on my shoulder.

“Am I ready?  No, but it has to be done.  The sooner I get it started the sooner I can move on with my life.  The sooner I can be done with it.” I tell him.  “I don’t want to, but I have to.”

I feel Brian nod.  “Want me to go with you?”

I laugh slightly.  “Oh that would go over well.” I tell him honestly.  “Somehow I don’t think they would take too kindly to you being there.  I don’t think you would be able to let me do what I have to do without blowing up … or trying to kick my dad’s ass.” I say with a smile.  “Not that I don’t think he would deserve it, but since I’m looking for answers… your presence might hinder that.”

“He’d be lucky that I just kick his ass.” Brian laughs.  He suddenly turns serious and holds me tighter.  “I don’t think you should do this alone.”

“I won’t be alone.” I tell him.  I turn my head to the side slightly so I can place a light kiss on his cheek.  “You’ll be there, even if it’s not in person.  You’ll be there beside me, giving me strength.  You don’t have to be present to be in my heart… in my soul.  You’re always with me, even when I try to get rid of you.  You always will be.  Nothing will change that.”  I wait for the standard sarcastic response, but get none.  Brian is just looking out the window, making sure to keep me close.  “If you want to do something for me, you’ll be here if I want to talk.  That’s what I need from you.”

Brian nods then turns his head and kisses me on the lips.  I feel his tongue lightly run across my lips, seeking entrance, and I open to let him in.  I missed his kisses the most while I was away from him.  He is by far the best damn kisser I know of.  He puts his whole being into each kiss.  His arms loosen, which allows me to turn around and reach up to pull him closer to me – deepening the kiss.  God, I can never get enough of him.  I don’t think I ever will.  I start to push him back toward the stairs and the bedroom.  I need to feel him, to have him inside of me before I make my way to my mom’s.

He lays me down on the bed, and crawls on top of me.  God… I can’t really describe the feeling I get when he’s there.  I feel safe, secure… loved.  His eyes looking down at me – opening up his soul to me.  That’s the first thing I noticed about him even back during the first time.  When he’s like this, his soul is open… he lets everyone see what he’s feeling, what he’s thinking.  That’s why I don’t understand why the tricks actually think they have a chance.  Don’t they look into his soul when they fuck?  Don’t they see the pain he is in when he fucks them?

I know what he’s like with them, and what he’s like with me.  I’ve seen him fucking others more times than I care to admit.  I’ve seen the way he looks at them.  The way he touches them, fucks them.  It’s nothing like what he is with me.  It’s not even in the same ballpark.

His hands move like silk over my body, caressing, arousing, making me come alive.  His mouth moves down my neck, placing soft butterfly kisses – blazing a hot trail down my chest toward my hard cock.  Oh God… It’s… it feels so good.  How could I have ever even THOUGHT of leaving him?  How could I have ever thought that he wasn’t enough.  What he does to me… fuck!... it’s … nothing can compare.  NOTHING!

Oh um… Oh God.  I… fuck… I can’t even begin to form a solid thought.  His mouth is on my cock… fuck!  Why – I wonder – did I ever think I could live without him?

Brian pulls away and moves up my body, lifting my legs up over his shoulder.  I can’t wait much longer… I have to feel him, have him inside me.  “Oh God!” I hear myself yell as he pushes all the way in – filling me the way only he can.  The pain is only slight, then the pleasure takes over… filling my entire being.  Fuck me… I can’t… I can’t even think.  I can feel the tension start to build deep within me as he grazes against my prostate with every thrust.  His tongue is mimicking the same movements of his lower body, and I can feel myself get lost in the passion.  I know I won’t last much longer.  Fuck!  Can I ever – will I ever get enough of him?  I hope not.

“Brian!” I moan as the tension gets too much and I have to let go.  It’s like a blinding light engulfs me… surrounds me every single time.  Stars flash before my eyes, and all I hear is the beating of our hearts – completely in synch.  Not that I would ever tell him any of this, but that’s what I feel every single time.  I feel so close to him in these moments.  The look on his face as he allows himself release is the most beautiful thing in the world to me.  If I could I would draw that moment, but I guess I’m sort of selfish because I don’t want anyone else to see this.  This is just between us.  The love that is reflected in his eyes… no that can never be shared.  It is our little secret.

His weight has never bothered me.  I love to feel him on top of me, still deeply embedded inside of me, with my own cum cementing our bodies together.  This part never lasts long because he’s always afraid that he will squash me, but if I died like this… at least I knew I had died a happy man.  There’s no other place I would rather be than right here.

Brian raises up and lightly kisses me on the lips as he pulls out of me.  The feeling of loss and emptiness always follows, and I always have to fight to keep from crying out.  I hate that feeling.  That’s when our fantasy world – our own private world – fades away and the real world crashes in on us.  I want to say in that private world… I don’t want to deal with real life, but I know that sooner or later I will have to deal with it.  I can’t very well have Brian permanently attached to me – although I wish it would be possible.

I remember that first time after I had gotten out of the hospital, when we had made love.  I remembered the actual attack by Hobbs… and feeling like the world was coming to an end.  I was scared, and felt like everything was closing in on me.  I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think.  I was thankful for the drug-induced sleep.

Then Brian… God what can I say about him.  He was so attentive, so caring.  He almost seemed embarrassed that I had remembered he tried to save me.  Like he didn’t do anything.  But he did… he did save me and so much more.  I had asked him to take things slow, and he did.  He put is own needs, his own wants away and focused on me.  He wanted to give me what I needed.  I will never forget that night.  Never.

I knew that night that he loved me… of course I forgot it not long after.  See, loving Brian is not easy.  He’s a contradiction to himself.  He’ll say one thing then his actions will say something totally different.  I had forgotten how to read his non-verbal communications.  I forgot how to understand HIM.  I’ll try not to do that anymore, but I know that there will be times that I will fall into the same trap that had lead us to the ‘break-up’.  I know we will.   I just hope that we will both be strong enough the next time to actually fight for what we want.

He wants me just as much as I want him.  We both need each other, and nothing will ever change that.

These past couple of months, I feel the same way I did that night so long ago.  I KNOW that Brian cares, and loves me.  I know it without a shadow of a doubt.  His love scares me at times… it really does.

See with Brian, well he gives all he can into something – forgetting his own needs and wants.  He will do what he feels is best for everyone else, not caring what it will do to him.  He did that with Michael and that whole Dr. Dave thing.  He did it to me.  He did it for Mel and Lindsey by giving up Gus.  He puts other peoples lives above his own.

I want that to change.  If there is one thing that I could change about him it would be that.  The thing is… no one can change that in him except himself.  No one can force him to change his belief that he is responsible for everyone else’s lives.  That’s just the way he is, and the reason why we love him.  I just wish that he would consider himself when he does these things.  I’ll try, but I don’t think I will succeed.  I’ll try to show him that he is worth loving, that he is worth the best the world can offer.  Who knows… maybe in fifty years I might actually get him to believe it.

Of course the biggest obstacle is our ‘family’.  God, they piss me off so much.  They are the main reason why Brian has so many problems.  They say they care, that they love him… but the first sign of trouble, the first little thing that comes across – well it’s all Brian’s fault.  Brian has to fix it.  Brian this, and Brian that.  Why can’t they just take care of their own damn problems and their own lives.  They shouldn’t put that much pressure on Brian all the damn time.  Now that is something I know will never change.  They will never change.

That’s the main reason why I won’t let Brian help me out with this mess.  He wants to, I know he does.  I love that he wants to take care of me, and protect me.  But here’s the thing… he gets enough of that shit from everyone else.  I am NOT going to add to it.  Fuck that.  This is my problem, my mess to clean up.

Hell it’s not like Brian was even there when this happened, and as for the Prom… well that wasn’t his fault.  So he doesn’t need to help me.  As long as he’s there to talk to me, and love me then I’m fine.  I’ll be okay.  I will survive this like I have survived everything else that has been thrown at me.

My family. My problem… It’s my life.

I’ll just have to deal with it my own way.  Brian can’t do that for me.  He can’t cope with what happened because it wasn’t him.  He can’t force me to deal with it.

Brian Kinney is NOT God.  He’s human, just like the rest of us.

If I’ve learned anything during our time together – especially in the past year, it’s that.

It was three hours later that I walk back into the house after leaving a sleeping Brian to do what I had to do.  I knew that if I didn’t leave him while he was out then he never would let me go alone.  Not if he knew where I was going.  I feel like I’ve had my heart ripped out of my chest, like everything is just crumbling around me.  I don’t even want to think about going to my mom’s and confronting her now.  I don’t know if I can bear it.

Brian is sitting at his computer and looks up at me. I only nod, and head up toward the bedroom.  I need a shower badly, even though I know it won’t get rid of this feeling I have.  I turn the shower as hot as I can stand it, and step in.  Closing my eyes, I let the hot water cascade down my body when I feel Brian’s arms go around my waist.  “Where did you go?” He asks me.

I know I really don’t have to answer.  He knows where I went, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.  “You know, there was a part of me that wished – fucking prayed that it wasn’t true.  A part of me that didn’t want to believe that he could do that… I’m such a fool.  Wanting to believe something… wanting to believe that the father I thought I knew wasn’t some sick fucking bastard.”  Brian’s hands gently massage my neck, trying to ease the tension that I know is there.  I wish that it would work, but I don’t know if anything will ever ease it now.  “He never once admitted it… but you could tell.  The look in his eyes.  Like a deer caught in the headlights… then switching between guilt and anger.  Although he denied it – rather quickly I might add.” I laugh slightly shaking my head.  “I could tell.  His words were lies… he really did do it.”

I turn to face Brian and look up at him.  “The thing is… he’s not sorry about it.  That’s what scares me.  He’s not sorry he did that to me, he’s sorry he got caught.  He’s sorry that I’m gay… that I’m not like him.  He’s sorry that I am not the ‘perfect son’.  Fucking asshole!”  Brian wraps his arms around me and I just bury my face in his chest.  “Everything I believed… my whole life was a fucking lie, Brian.” I say as I can feel the tears that I have held since I had seen my father – since I had seen Craig – finally fell.  “I don’t understand.  It was all just one big fat fucking lie… and I don’t know why.”

Brian didn’t say anything, for which I’m grateful.  I didn’t need any meaningless words of ‘comfort’.  I didn’t need someone to tell me that everything would be alright.  Brian knew.  He knows!  Nothing will ever be alright again… at least not the same as it was before.

Before I knew the truth.

I just let Brian hold me, allowing me to let go.  Allowing me to let go of the past, to let go of the memories of a happy childhood.

Allowing me to mourn the loss of everything I had believed.  I have never loved him more.   
  

I slowly opened my eyes, trying to get accustomed to the damn sunlight that was filtering through the windows.  Brian’s arms are wrapped tightly around me, and I know he held me all night long.  He kept the demons at bay for the night.  Brian was great… and I know I couldn’t have made it through the night without him.  He had pulled me out of the shower and dried me off, then placed me into bed.  For some reason I always feel safer with him around.  I hate that, but there’s nothing I can do about it.  I didn’t think that I could handle things without people like Brian and Daphne there to stand beside me… to make me see how fucked I am making things out to be.

I know I take things to the extreme.  I over analyze things to death, and get all worked up over the littlest of things.  The doctor – after the bashing – told me that that would happen.  He said that I would… well that I might have some trouble being able to handle my emotions.  He said that I might have problems with my reasoning.  Might have… might have… sounds a lot like what if… What the fuck ever!  I am so sick and tired of most of the shit.  I keep thinking that no matter how much I try to get past the Prom, win over Hobbs… something keeps pulling me back.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to beat it completely.

Oh well, it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it.  I can only live and try to cope with the changes to my body and mind.  It’s all I can do.  Of course now trying to come to grips with my past… it’s amazing that I haven’t tried to slit my wrists.  If I didn’t like living as much as I do, I know I would have ended it a long time ago.

But alas, I’m still here.  Still kicking, still fighting.  Every minute of every day.  Trying not to let it bring me down completely.  I might fall and stagger, but I won’t allow myself to stay down.  I have to keep fighting.  That’s all I can do.

After yesterday, Brian told me that under NO circumstances am I to go to my mom’s alone.  He is going to go with me whether I liked it or not.  A part of me wants to argue with him, wants to tell him no, but the other part of me is begging him to come along.  Wanting him to be there to make sure I get back up.  Is that so wrong?  Am I relying on him too much?  Especially when I keep telling him and everyone that I want to do this alone?

I know I won’t be getting anymore sleep so I start to pull out of Brian’s arms.  I slide over to the side of the bed, and start to get up when I feel Brian’s hand on my arm.  “Where do you think you’re going?  You are not going to your mother’s without me.” He says wide awake.  And here I wanted to be quiet cause I thought he was still asleep.

I turn around slightly to look over at him.  I pull his hand up to my lips, lightly placing a kiss on the inside of his palm.  “Don’t worry I wasn’t going to leave without you.  I just have to take a piss and I wanted to get something to eat.  Maybe even get a shower in and get dressed.  Is that all right with you, Master?” I jokingly ask him.

“Twat.” He says as his hits me on the leg.  “Don’t be a smart ass.”

“But you love my ass.” I laugh as I quickly run to the bathroom and into the shower.  Brian doesn’t follow me in, for which I’m grateful.  I want to get this shit with my mom done and over with so I can go on with my life, and if he walked in here now, I know we wouldn’t be out of here for at least another hour.  Of course I’m talking about one of the biggest clothes conscious men in the entire world, so we still might not make it out of here for another hour maybe more.

I turn off the shower, and wrap a towel around my waist.  When I get into the bedroom, Brian is no longer there so I go over to my suitcase and pull out some clothes.  I see Brian walk up the stairs and make his way into the bathroom, so I quickly finish dressing and race down for a  cup of coffee.  I need something to take my mind off of what I’m about to do, but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything.

Nothing can take my mind off of confronting my mother with the truth.  Did she know?  Why didn’t she tell me?  Why the HELL didn’t she protect me?  Did she allow it to happen to Molly too?  So many things I want to know – I need to know – that I don’t think anything can stop my mind from going over this shit.

In a way I don’t want to know.  I mean really.  I love my mom, and she’s been great these past couple of years.  Standing beside me, always supporting me, never giving up on me.  Am I ready to really lose that?  DO I want to lose my mom over this?  I don’t know if I’m ready to really be alone.  Before it was all hypothetical.  I would be on my own, living my life without financial support from my loved ones… but I never thought that I would do all that without emotional support from them.  Can I survive if I find out that she knew all along?  I don’t know.  Maybe I shouldn’t do this.  Maybe I should just be okay with knowing that it did happen, and that I’m not crazy.

I don’t want to lose my family.  I don’t want to lose my mom.  I don’t know what to do.  I feel so lost that I can’t even think straight.

I have to get my mind off all this shit.  I can’t think about this now… all it will do is make me totally crazy and wound up long before I even step foot in my mom’s place.

Let’s see… ahh.. yeah.  The Le Grand Louvre was built in 1190.  It once was a fortress, then a palace, and then in the 1700’s it became a museum.  It houses the Mona Lisa.  The Mona Lisa was painted by Michelangelo sometime between 1503 and 1505, during his second Florentine period…. Ahhh.. more modern artists.  Let’s see… Mary Cassett… I always loved how she was able to capture the love between a mother and child…

Fuck!  It isn’t working.  Nothing can get my mind off of it.  Trust me, I’m trying.  Have I told you how much I HATE this shit?  My dad… Mr. Craig Taylor.  What a fucking asshole.  I don’t think I can ever think of him as my father or anything ever again.  Yeah, I have a hard time with it, but the more I think about it the angrier I get.  All I see is that child… ME… sitting on the bed with my arms curled around my legs.  Praying… just fucking BEGGING to God to let him not open that door that night.  Every time I was disappointed when I watched the handle slowly turn and he stepped into my room.

I’m remembering more and more of it everyday.  Last night I couldn’t even close my eyes without seeing it replay over in my head.  I’m amazed that I didn’t wake Brian with all my tossing and turning.  Every time I wake up I want to jump into the shower and wash it all away.  Let it all just slip down the drain.  But I know that won’t work… nothing will erase it from my mind.  Nothing can erase the memories of my so-called father touching me.  It makes me sick to my stomach.

I can’t imagine Brian ever doing that to Gus.  I can’t imagine any father doing that to their child if they gave a damn about them.  It makes me wonder if Grandfather Taylor ever did that to Craig.  I mean he had to learn it from somewhere right?

Now I know I’m going to be sick.  I don’t even want to THINK about it anymore.

I feel Brian’s arms go around me, as his lips lightly move across the back of my neck.  “You’re as stiff as a board.  You need to relax.” He whispers against my ear.  “You sure you want to do this now?”

I nod as I hold his arms tightly against me, molding our bodies closer together.  “I need to do this, Bri.  I can’t go on the way I have been… I need answers.”

Brian slowly withdraws his arms from around my waist and picks up his keys from on top of the counter.  “Let’s get this shit over with.  I have things to do today, and we have to help Daphne clear out that spare room.”

I shake my head, and take a deep breath.  I’m grateful that he’s making this easier, not adding to the stress.  “Let’s go.” I say as we close up the loft, get in the jeep and head over towards my moms.  Have I mentioned how much I DON’T want to do this?

Once the jeep comes to a stop in front of my mom’s town home, I can only sit there and think about everything – worry about things.  Questions are flying through my mind right now, and I don’t know if I have the strength to actually ask them.  How can I ask my mom if she let Craig fuck me?  Will this be the last time I see my mom?  The last time I am welcome here?

“Justin?” Brian asks placing his hand on my arm, bringing me back to the present.  I steal a quick glance over to him then reach over and open the door.

I don’t even look back to see if Brian is behind me as I make my way up to the front door.  Knocking, I take a deep breath in order to steal myself for this.  I hope I’m strong enough to get through this, to actually do this.

“Justin.” My mom says as she opens the door and pulls me into a hug.  I can tell the instant she sees Brian, because she stiffens slightly then instantly puts a fake smile on.  I hate that she does that.   She always tries to pretend that things are all right… that she’s okay with my choices.  When I know that all she wants to do is have me be someone else… see someone else.  I know it… I’ve always known it.  Yeah, she doesn’t mind me being gay – well at least for the most part – but she definitely does not like Brian.  “Come in.” She states as she moves away from the door.

I follow her up the stairs and into the living room, with Brian right behind us.  A part of me wants him to leave, but I am grateful that he’s there, that he is there to help me.  My mom sits down on the couch, so I sit down at the far end.  Brian sits down in the chair next to me and put his hand in mine, entwining our fingers.  I can see that it upsets mom, for one that Brian is even there, and two the obvious display of our relationship.  Frankly, I don’t give a shit anymore if she likes me being with Brian or not.  It’s not her life… it’s mine.

“Justin, what’s wrong?” She asks me.

I take a deep breath and slowly let it out.  “I talked to Craig yesterday, and I just… There’s something I need to ask you, and I want an honest answer.” I finally get out.  I have NO idea how in the hell do go about this, but I’m trying.  I guess that’s worth some thing.  I steal a glance at her, but I can’t look at her and see her face.  I can’t look into the face of my mother and tell her what I remember.  Call me a chicken-shit, I don’t care.  I just can’t do it.  I feel Brian’s hand tighten in mine, and it gives me the strength to tell her everything.

“Justin,” she begins.  I look up and see her shocked face and watch as she shakes her head.  “Daddy wouldn’t do that.  You know that.  How can you say things like that?  You didn’t tell him all of this did you?”

“I confronted him about it yesterday, Mom.  He didn’t deny it.” I tell her.

“Justin, sweetheart, you know your father.  Daddy would never do anything like that.  Yes, he was always affectionate, but to … no he wouldn’t do that.” Mom denied.  It makes me wonder if she did know.

“Affectionate?” Brian angrily spits out.  “Oh yeah… touching your kid, and having sex with them is real affection.  No, nothing wrong with that at all.  Christ!”

“Brian.” I say quietly putting my other hand on top of our joined ones.  “Please.”  Brian just shakes his head and looks off to the side.  I know he’s pissed, and in a way I can’t really blame him, but he’s not really helping my case any right now.  “Mom, I’m not making this up.  He did it.”

My mom reaches out to put her hand on my arm and I swear that I’m looking at her – wanting her to prove to me that I’m wrong.  “Honey.  You told me that you were doing regression therapy, and you know that they have ways of putting things into your head.  You’re father would…”

“I’m NOT making this up, Mom!” I yell at her.  “And Mark didn’t put anything in my head!  Craig Taylor rapped me… my own fucking father.”

“No,” she denies.  “I think I would have known… I was married to him for a little over twenty years.  He would never do that.  I think you should just forget about this, and I don’t want you to bring it up again.  What if Molly heard that?”

“What if he did the same thing to Molly, Mom?”  I ask her as I stand up, looking down at her.  “What if he rapped Molly?  Would you be sitting here telling HER to forget it?  Jesus, Mom, I’m NOT making this up.  It happened, and you’re either too blind or too uncaring to even admit it.”  I can feel the anxiety and panic start to rise within me and I try to take some deep breaths, hoping that it will calm me down slightly.  “You know, Mom.  You know that I wouldn’t lie about this.  It happened.  The man who you married is a fucking child molester.  He doesn’t give a damn about anyone but himself.  He would come into my room every fucking night.  He would touch me… make me touch him.  He would…” I begin.  Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I try to clear the images that have assaulted me.

It’s as clear as the day it happened.  I can see him, standing there at my door.  I can feel his hands on me, his fingers in me, his mouth on me… and mine on him.  It seems like it was just yesterday – especially since now the memories are so clear and fresh.  “Did you know?  That’s all I want to know… did you let him do this?”

“Justin.” My mom says shaking her head.  “Daddy wouldn’t do that.”

“If it was Molly telling you this, you would rush over there and confront him.  Why can’t you do the same for me?  Why can’t you believe me?” I ask her, letting the tears fall from my eyes.  I shake my head, and simply walk out of the house.  I can’t stand to be there anymore having her defend him.  I don’t know if she knew that it was happening or not, but the fact that she is denying it – that she won’t admit it, and thinks I’m lying… well that’s enough for me.  I no longer have a family.  I can’t!  I don’t think I can be around them again, knowing what I know.

The second I get to the jeep I let loose, as I feel the breakfast I had that morning come back up.  It seems like forever before I feel Brian’s hand on my neck easing the tense muscles there.  “Come on, let’s go home.” He tells me as he opens the door for me.  After climbing in, I just stare out the window watching my past disappear… watching my family crumble around me.

Home… I don’t have a home anymore.  I wonder if I ever really did.  I’m falling, and I don’t know how to stop it, or if I will survive.  What can someone do when they find out their entire past was a lie?  How can someone survive that?

Brian and I don’t talk, and once we get to the loft, I quickly head up to the bed and just lay there.  Thankfully, Brian is letting me have my space.  He’s not pushing for me to talk to him.  I don’t even know what I would say.  I just let the tears of loss flow out of me.  I grieve for the first time really.  Grieve for the family I had just lost… that I might not have even had.  Grieve for my childhood… my past.

Nothing will ever be the same again.

I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep until I open my eyes and see that it’s dark outside.  I slept the entire day, and I didn’t even notice.  Of course I think I could sleep the rest of my life and still never feel completely refreshed… feel ‘anew’ as they say.  I don’t know if I will ever feel that again.

Getting out of bed, I make my way over to the kitchen.  I should try to eat something… it’s been a while since I had something solid in my stomach.  Opening the fridge, I suddenly remember who I’m currently staying with.  You would think that after all the time I had lived with Brian I would know that he normally didn’t have shit in his fridge… I was the only reason why he had anything in there.

“We can go to the diner and pick something up.” Brian says from his desk.  I look up at him, wondering if I’m ready for that.  I think I’ve had enough drama in my life recently… I don’t know if I’m ready for more.  “It’ll do you some good to get out, see the gang.”

I nod briefly and get my coat.  I’m running on autopilot, letting Brian lead me.  I don’t have the energy for anything else.

Now the thing is… and it’s something that I had forgotten in all of this mess, but I remember now.  I still have a family.  We may not be related by birth, or blood, but we are a family.  As crazy and weird as it all is, we are still one.  Just that one meal at the diner, and I feel instantly better.  Not close to a hundred percent, but better.  They will be there to help me heal.  They remind me that I am strong, that I can make it.

I know that things will not be easy… hell they never are. But the thing is I think that everything will be all right. Yeah, I might have lost my family… the ones who raised me, but I have found something more important than that.  I think I have finally found myself. I know where I belong. I know who I am.

I am a young gay man, who has his whole life a head of him.  I have a family who will always be there for me, and I will be there for them.

I have a lover who will do anything for me, even if it hurts.  I have a lover who is willing to share in the pain and sorrow, and joy and happiness.  We have grown this past year – together and separate.  I think we just may actually make it this time.

Yeah, not that I’m going to move in with him again right away… we still have a long ways to go, but we’re both willing to give this ‘relationship’ crap – as he calls it – a chance.  We’re willing to try, and that’s more than I can say about my blood.

In two days I’ll move in with Daphne, and try to start my life over.  I will be on my own… living my life with those who really care about me.  If I can work things out with my Mom, then that’s good.  But I’m not holding out for that.  There is too much now to try and get past.  I don’t know if we ever will be what we used to be.

The thing is… I’m okay with that.  Or at least I will be.  Yeah, now it hurts – it hurts really fucking bad, but I’m surviving.  I will continue to survive.  Cause just like when I was 17 and without a home, I have people who will look out for me.  And like when I got out of the hospital after Prom… I know that they will help me heal.  That’s what they do.

Of course they will always call me on my shit, and won’t let me get too far down the path of destruction, but that’s okay.  I’m glad that they will.  Yes, I have to do this alone for the most part.  No one knows what it’s like, no one can put themselves fully in my shoes, but they won’t patronize me either.  They will listen, and let me vent. They won’t tell me that I’m making things up, that I don’t know what I’m talking about.  Well unless I am doing something that could be dangerous – either emotionally or physically – or there is solid proof that I am wrong.

That’s love.  That’s real love.

I think in time everything will be all right.  I think that eventually I’ll be able to look myself in the eye and instead of seeing someone who had been beaten down again and again, I will see a survivor.

I am sure in time I will be able to sleep the night through, and wake up happy to see the sun rise, and get excited about the new day.

Yeah… someday that will happen.  I am sure of that.  I am not without love, without friends and family.

I still have my art, my life.  Yes, things are tough, and I feel lost, but I will find my way again.  I know I will make it, and thrive.

If Brian taught me anything it is that I am a survivor… that I can get past anything.  Hell, Brian’s hurt me a lot, and I’m still here… still with him.  I survived getting my head smashed in… so I know that I will be here at least long enough to make peace with myself.

No, all the people I need are right here.  Vic, Deb, Em, Lindsey, Mel, Ted, Daphne, Ben, Brian… yeah and even Michael.  I can be a child through Gus, and make new memories – better ones.

It’s time for me to start the move forward, completely now.  No hesitation.  Just one foot in front of the other.

Never looking back.

It’s over, time to move on.  Move past this and live… truly live for the first time in my life.

It’s time to begin my new life, and never look back.

Never!

I’ve finally found my way.

* * * * * * * * *   
  

End of Finding My Way   
TBC….. (in Brian’s POV – Learning to Be)   
  


	2. Learning to Be -- Brian's story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again. WARNING: CONTAINS References to Rape and child molestation

  
A New Day has Come -- Part 2   
Learning to Be -- Brian's story   
By: Acacia 

Chapter One 

****************

Okay… where the fuck to start.  I bet you’re wondering where I stand in my life.  Then again, you’re most likely saying ‘Why would I give a fuck?’  Well, frankly, I don’t give a fuck.  It seems like my life is on the front page of _Pittsburgh Out_ anyway, so I might as well just give you the real version and not some cooked up bullshit that they are saying. 

Today is moving day.  I hate moving and since this is NOT my move, but Justin’s I hate it even more.  I keep telling the shit that he can just stay with me, but he tells me that bullshit about how he needs to be a man… he needs to do this on his own.  What the fuck is that shit?  At times I wonder why I even bother. 

So we’re moving his shit into this small ass apartment, trying to find room to put his things.  Even though he doesn’t have a lot of crap, I know that most of his stuff will have to stay in storage.  Only the essentials.  How anyone can live like this is beyond me.  But this is Justin ‘being a man’, ‘taking care of himself’.  Damn little shit.  I don’t know what I have to do to convince him that it will just be easier on everyone if he just stays with me.  I don’t know what I would have to do to convince him that I want him there. 

But does my opinion matter in any of this?  Fuck no.  I’m just the guy who fucks him, what would I have to say about it? 

That’s the other thing… what exactly are we?  We’re lovers, that much I have figured out… but besides that?  Well, Justin hasn’t told me anything else.  I figure with everything that’s going on in his life, with all the shit he’s dealing with – I’m not going to push him.  I’ll be a good little boy, and let him decide what and where he wants to be.  Only problem is… I hate his fucking choices. 

I want him with me.  I want him to be home when I get there.  I want him! 

But if you ask anyone else, I don’t give a damn about anyone but myself.  Justin’s the only one who has never believed that, he’s the only one who had not bought into my little ‘credo’.  He’s the only one who has not blindly followed me, who has actually challenged me.  That’s why I want him. 

I can talk to him – have an actual intelligent conversation with him.  Mikey… I love Mikey, don’t get me wrong – but with Mikey it’s mainly shit about our past, or some stupid shit.  Ted… well we don’t ever really have much in common per say.  Emmett?  Mel?  Ha!  Yeah, right.  Lindsey and I mainly talk about Gus. 

But Justin… Justin is smart, funny… hot as hell.  He never takes my shit either – hell, he’ll call me on it every time. 

Okay, yeah, so there was a time when he didn’t – when he forgot how to read me.  But we’re getting back to the way things were – at least in the understanding each other aspect.  It’s … it’s strange almost how much things have changed between us.  I only wish that he would trust me enough – that he’d let me take care of him. 

Yeah, like that shit will ever happen. 

Justin wants to be independent… he wants to quote ‘be a man’ unquote.  I hate that he feels he can’t let me do shit for him.  It’s only money.  I want to take care of him. 

It’s not like anyone else gives a damn what happens to him.  Especially not his so called family. 

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a little over a year since he left for that school – left all of us here.  I remember that day that he came by and he told me about Ethan – the truth behind Ian… Ethan.  I was so fucking pissed at him.  I mean how dare he fucking try and force something out of me.  How dare he decide what we will be without talking to me about it?! 

Yeah, I know – I fucking know all right!  I know, I’m not the easiest person in the world to talk to.  Hell I’m not even in the top one million, but damn.  He was the one who was supposed to talk, to get me to ‘open up’.  I know now that we both failed.  We both failed in the relationship – yes we were in one even then.  I pushed him away, and he let me. 

When he walked out that door the next morning, I felt like my soul was being ripped out of my body.  I was still in shock about Ian – or rather his non-relationship with Ian – then to hear that he was leaving.  For a fucking year.  Once again he was making the decisions for the both of us, and once again… I was letting him.  Stupid, I know.  Trust me, I know.  Yeah, I know I was the one who had pushed him off the cliff, but he’s the one who walked out the door. 

So what the fuck was all that shit about Ian being fake… their whole … whatever the fuck, being fake?  Justin told me that he only wanted to get me to open up?  It just didn’t make any sense – still doesn’t.  I don’t know what to think about all that mess.  So when I dragged my ass out of bed, and saw his note… I wanted to find him and kick his ass.  I wanted answers – I fucking deserved answers. 

But he denied me those answers.  He fucking denied me everything.  Fucking little shit.  He left, only leaving a damn letter in his wake.  Justin was gone – leaving the fucking country – and all I got was a damn letter. 

I remember picking it up, ready to rip the damn thing to shreds… so pissed at the little shit for running like that.  But I also realized… maybe I owed it to him – to US, to see what he had to say.   
  

_~~ Dear ~~ _ _ Brian, _

_ I don’t really know what to say.  Thank-you for everything that you have done for me over the past two years.  I can never thank-you enough.  I know that you felt you were doing the right thing by letting me go, and I think that now I can be grateful that you did.  I know that if we were still together I wouldn’t have been able to make this trip… so once again I have you to thank for that. _

_ I want to say that I’m sorry.  I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve done lately.  I’m sorry I lied to you.  I tried to get you to admit something that you weren’t ready to admit.  For that, I’m also sorry. _

_ I know, sorry’s bullshit, but I do wish I could change what I did.  I wish I was man enough to admit to you what I was feeling.  But I was afraid. _

_ I want you to know that I don’t blame you for anything.  If anything I am the one to blame.  You gave your all, and near the end…I refused to listen.  That wasn’t your fault, that was mine.  I wish things had turned out differently. _

_ But maybe we need this time apart… time for me to once again be able to read you the way I used to.  For me to grow up… to experience all the things that you had wanted me to experience.  This is my chance I guess to get over everything, to get over being a kid, and be a man.  So that’s what I’m going to do.  I’m going to try and live my life this next year to the fullest.  I hope that we can be friends, that you will still allow me in your life.  I know I want you in mine. _

_ I don’t want to lose you, Brian… you mean so much to me that I don’t think I can fully function without you.  I’m going to try… try to function on my own.  I’ve never done that.  I’ve always been taken care of… so now it’s time to start taking care of myself… to see if I can do it on my own. _

_ I know now that you care for me… I’m listening Brian… for the first time in months, I’m finally listening.  Last night proved to me that you care.  I’ve thought about this, about everything and I know that you care for me.  I don’t know if it’s love… but what we have I think (at least for me) is much stronger than any love that I have ever experienced. _

_ I know I can’t ask you to take me back someday, cause I know I’ve hurt you.  I will be here, however, if you ever decide that we might be worth another chance.  That I might be worth it again. _

_ I hope to hear from you someday, cause as I said, I would like to be your friend. _

_I love you Brian, I always will_  
_Later,_   
_Justin_

  
I pride myself on being able to read people… to know what they are hiding.  But with Justin… well he sure as hell pulled one over on me.  I don’t know how I missed it.  Things were going pretty good between us… I am not even sure when things got so fucked up that I couldn’t read him.  It makes me wonder what else he’s been hiding from me. 

All I DO know… I’m not going to listen to anyone else and their crap when it comes to Justin and I.  This time around I am not going to let the ‘gang’ try and tell us how to do things… listen to their crap. 

Granted, I must say that this separation was good for us, just as he said it might be.  We both found things out about ourselves.  Granted, the thought of what that asshole Craig did to Justin… if I ever see that fucker out on the town… 

I can still remember the day that we started ‘talking’ again.  I was surprised that he actually accepted my chat invitation.  I’m glad that he was willing to take that step.  I know I should be insulted that he thought all I did on the net was sex shit… but I guess I’m finding out that there’s a lot we don’t know about each other. 

Things went smoothly for a while, but as usual, it didn’t last long. 

So two months after Justin left, I started to hear that he had stopped talking to his mom.  Of course I got hell for that.  Somehow it was – of course – my fault.  Go fucking figure.  Justin and I were becoming friends… something I never thought we’d be – but he never confided in me his personal life.  School – yes, the gang – yes.  But now looking back on it… he never once talked about what he was feeling, what he was doing.  So I just let things go on as they were.  No fuss, no muss. 

I don’t know if I can even really pinpoint when things went to shit for me.  But I can honestly say that through it all, Justin was there beside me.   He might not have been physically here, but he was that damn little voice in the back of my head. 

In all my years as an Ad Exec, I had never once refused to do a job… I had never once put my job on the line for anything.  Then again, I have found myself doing things that I never used to do since the day I met Justin.  Something about him has made me do things I never would have done before.  Damn twink. 

There I was – someone without a heart – working for the enemy.  Or so they thought.  The only thing is that despite the possibilities – the opportunities that this could have given me, and the change to get out of the fucking Pitts – I purposely fucked it up. 

Everyone thought I was working for Stockwell, and I was for a while. But the conflict of interest… well I told him to go to hell.  I guess telling a client that he’s a fucking asshole, and he can go fuck himself wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done.  Vance fired my ass for being unprofessional right on the spot. 

There I was, out of a job – nothing left.  I was pissed.  Damn right fucking furious.  So I fought back.  It took two weeks to put my revenge together, but I did. 

See Stockwell didn’t like fags – hated the thought of taking it up the ass.  He wanted to ‘clean up the city’.  I cleaned up all right.  Fucker. 

What can I say?  I love fucking with people.  It’s one of my favorite pastimes. 

He lost the election and I got a better fucking job.  Vance felt like shit when the truth about the asshole came out.  That he was an accessory to murder.  Vance came to me… practically begging me to come back – so the company could save face. 

What did I do?  I told him to fuck off.  I wasn’t going to work for some asshole who had his ideas… who would fire me for standing up for something.  So I looked elsewhere. 

It’s different.  A different firm.  But I’m full partner – huge benefits package.  Most of my clients left Vanguard and came with me.  I guess Vance is really hating life right now.  Hell, I even took Cynthia with me.  Vanguard can fall apart for all I care. 

Anyway, it took a while, but I was back on top.  Better off then before, cause now I could take more time off.  They loved me there. 

When Justin told me – after I was finally able to get in contact with the little shit – that I had ignored him.  That I wasn’t being a ‘good friend.’  Well I blew up.  How the fuck can he say that shit and not expect me to react?  We argued, but it all worked out in the end I guess.  We’re here. 

The thing that I still haven’t been able to get to the bottom of – to decide what I was going to do about – was Mikey.  I have to decide though.  Justin has enough shit to deal with that he really shouldn’t have to deal with Mikey’s bullshit too.  I’ll have to think about that, and soon. 

“I think I need to get a smaller bed,” Justin stated as he came out from one of the back bedrooms.  This apartment was fucking small.  I don’t think that I had ever lived in a place this tiny. 

I move to sit on the small couch that Daphne has in the apartment, trying not to think of what is in this thing.  I can already feel my skin itch.  “There’s a nice big bed at the loft.” 

“Brian.” He begins. 

I know, I fucking know all right?  Justin and I have been through this shit quite often.  I keep telling him he needs to move back into the loft, and he keeps telling me he needs to ‘grow-up’.  What a load of crap.  I’ll let him make his choices, stay here.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop asking… stop bringing it up.  The thing is, I want him there.  The loft is empty without him.  During his time away, I found that I actually miss having him around.  And it’s not just the sex with him… although that is an added plus. 

“Dammit, Justin.  You have a perfectly good place to stay.  Don’t expect me to be all for this fucking ‘independence’ kick you’re on.”  People say that I don’t care what others think, what they want – but that would be a lie.  I do care.  I just don’t show it, at least not all the time.  “You’re going to do what you want, but don’t expect me to be jumping up and down.  You know where I stand, and I think you’re making a mistake.” 

Okay, so I’m honest to a fault at times.  I can get Justin’s feathers ruffled more than not.  Especially when I– as he says – treat him like a child.  Then again, what does he expect when that’s exactly what he is acting like… a spoiled little brat.  Justin just walks up to me and places his hand on my arm.  I want to just shrug it off, tell him to fuck off… but I don’t.  Little shit has me wrapped around his little finger and he has no clue what he does to me – what he makes me do.  Fucking shit.  “Brian.  I appreciate everything that you’ve done for me.  And for the fact that you’re letting me do this.  I know you don’t like it, but this is something I have to do for myself.  I have to do this, and I would appreciate it if you would let me do it.  Let me make my own mistakes… let me find out what it’s like to be myself.  I have to do this… especially now.” 

I pull my arm out of his grasp, and just move to place another box on the old, nasty looking bed.  “Whatever.  You’re going to do what you fucking want… you always do.” 

It’s the same old argument that we have been having since we got off the plane.  He wants to be grown-up.  He wants to play with the big boys.  And here I thought I had actually taught him to ask for help if he needs it, that that’s what a man should do.  But does he listen to me?  Fuck no.  He doesn’t think he needs any help. 

I wonder if things had been different.  I shouldn’t, but I do.  I mean, what if he hadn’t found out that his father is a piece of shit?  What if he still believed in the ‘image’ of his father?  Would he be willing to accept help?  Would he be willing to come to me and stay?  I don’t know if there are answers to that.  I really don’t. 

But fuck… I have seen glimpse of the old Justin every once in a while.  The one who would stand up to me, call me on my shit.  Anything’s better than the lost look that I see in his eyes sometimes at night.  He doesn’t think I notice, but I do.  I see him leave the bed at night and watch him as he looks out over the night sky for hours.  I can see his body tremble with pain… the tears streak down his face. 

God… I want to kill Craig Taylor.  I want to rip his balls off and shove them down his fucking throat. 

Justin tries to be strong, tries to pretend that it doesn’t matter, but I know better.  It kills him.  His whole life he was lead to believe one thing, and now everything that he knew is gone.  His entire past has been torn up and spit out.  He doesn’t think he has anything left.  He feels like he is nothing.  I know, even if he doesn’t talk about it.  I know what he’s feeling.  I know. 

I felt it for a long time myself.  What did I do wrong?  Why did my father like to use me as a punching bag?  Why the fuck didn’t my mother give a damn?  The thing is… I stopped caring.  I stopped giving a damn what the fuck they did.  It wasn’t my fault for their fuck ups.  I wasn’t the reason why they couldn’t accept shit, and took it out on a helpless kid.  They were the fucked up ones… they just wanted to drag me down with them. 

I wish I could say that they didn’t succeed, but I can’t really.  I am fucked up… but I would never do what they did to me.  I wouldn’t treat a child, or anyone like that. 

But Justin… he had it all growing up.  His family was the kind that I wanted to have growing up.  At least that’s what I thought. 

Everyone believed that Justin had it all.  Born with a silver spoon in his mouth… never wanted for anything.  Boy were we ever wrong.  I just wish he didn’t have to go through it.  Not the first time, and not now. 

I guess the only thing I can do really is be here for him.  I can’t take away the past, but I can try to make it easier on him… make living today easier. 

He’ll fight me… hell yeah he’ll fight.  But that’s the fun.  Just like when he saw me in his room in Italy. 

We’ve had some good times.  We will again.  We have to. 

I can’t let him drown.   
    
 The thing is, when I went over to Italy I never thought that I would find what I did.  Justin had been ignoring me, and honestly I had enough of his shit.  See, I’m not totally stupid when it comes to him.  I knew from the moment he left that something was wrong – even before that.  I had thought that things were getting better, that being away would be a good thing for him.  I was so wrong. 

I knew something big was going on.  Justin’s a talker, and when he wouldn’t ‘talk’ to me, I just knew.  He completely avoided any discussion about himself.  School – yes, friends – yes, but family and himself… no.  Something was up and I was going to find out, come hell or high water.  The little shit was avoiding me. 

So when he stopped talking to me altogether, I blew.  I hopped on the first fucking plane I could get out there, and I was determined to find out what his problem was.  Things were going all right between us, I guess you could say.  We were actually talking, getting to know each other for the first time.  Yeah, we could tell you how to make the other cum without much effort, where our hotspots were… but it was the other shit, you know?  I found out I really didn’t know him at all. 

Go figure.  He leaves and after practically two years we were finally getting to know each other.  So I’m backwards.  I never once said I was good at this shit.  Justin was the first person, besides Mikey, that I really wanted to spend time with.  But unlike Mikey, Justin and I had more.  Yeah, we had sex added to the mix – fanfuckingtastic sex, but it was more than that.  Justin was the first person I wanted to have sex with more than once.  He’s the first person I know who could keep up with me. 

Justin was also the only person I knew who could keep up with me intellectually.  He’s smart as fuck, and he’s not ashamed to straighten me out when I’m wrong.  I remember times we would sit in front of the TV – watching some show or another – and he would debate with me about something we saw.  He was never afraid to express himself, and what he knew – or thought he knew – was right. 

That’s why I knew something HUGE was going on. 

I just never thought I would find out what I did. 

I remember when I got there, someone had let me up to his room.  Justin isn’t really a messy person, but his mind is on like 5,000 things and he forgets at times where he put things.  He doesn’t always remember to put it back.  Justin would always yell at me if I tried to pick up his things, telling me that he wasn’t done with that item, or whatever.  And sure as fuck he would go right back to that in no time flat.  If he said he would do something he would.  I had never known him to break his promise… well not always. 

The thing is… he tries.  And if he fails, he will be first to admit it.  He actually feels bad about not following through with that promise. 

That’s Justin. 

I guess that’s why I was so upset – so damn fucking furious with him.  But sitting on his bed that day… looking at his sketch book… fuck! 

I sat there looking at these drawings, feeling the coldness seep into me.  Luckily, the door opened and there he was.  Standing there shocked out of his mind.  God, did I want to laugh as I watched him blink a couple of times and shake his head.  “What the hell are you doing here?” is how it all started. 

I had tried to act cool, tried to play it as if I wasn’t ready to rip his fucking balls off and … whatever.  That didn’t last long though.  Justin always has a way of making me so furious, so ready to hurt someone.  Gotta love relationships.  Opposites attract?  Ha!  They haven’t met us. 

I remember parts of the whole day, the whole drama that we went though.  I had moments when all I wanted to do was kill him, others where I just wanted to take him back to my hotel room and fuck him into oblivion.  He wouldn’t let me do either, wouldn’t even let me talk. 

And here I was complaining that he wouldn’t talk to me.  I asked for it… and I sure as fuck got it. 

He stormed out of the room, and I followed him.  Yet another rule I had broken because of him.  So at the beach close to the school… everything I had thought about us, about him came crashing down around him.  Everything was shattered when he asked me what I was looking for. 

“I’m looking for the fucking truth, Justin,” I told him, as I moved to sit down on the sand.  I was so tired, both from jetlag and from this whole fucking mess.  He was gong to tell me, even if I had to sit and wait for him to do it.  “What the hell is going on?  This isn’t like you.  You don’t call me after I had been silent for two weeks, yelling that I haven’t called then turn around and do the same damn thing.  I think you own me an explanation, don’t you?”  I sure as hell wasn’t going to take his ‘I don’t own you anything’ shit either. 

“It isn’t easy for me, Brian.  It hasn’t been easy for me.” He told me, looking down at me.  He looked even more exhausted than I felt, so I knew it wasn’t good.  Something was bothering him, and he wasn’t sure he could even tell me. 

I knew I had to try and do something.  I had to try and get him to open up.  “Try.”  Okay, so that’s one of the biggest jokes in the universe, I know.  Me trying to get him to open up when I myself never once believed in that sort of shit. 

Justin wrapped his arms around himself, not looking at me.  He was closing himself off from everything.  I just held my breath, hoping that he would tell me and not make me do something I had never dreamed I would do.  Luckily he did.  Or should I say unluckily?  I never wanted to hear the shit that was coming out of his mouth.  I never thought that I was so fucking wrong about things.  It was like we were watching the same movie, but the movie is totally different for each of us.  I’m watching some action movie and he’s stuck on romance, or some shit like that. 

I was so wrong about a lot of shit. 

I sat there just looking out at the ocean, with him sitting beside me, just listening to him go on and on.  I couldn’t believe some of the crap that he was saying, and it’s thigns that I had never known about.  I had thought that he was over the whole business, but as I said… I was wrong about a lot of shit. 

He told me about how the Rage party, and re-enactment effected him, and in all honesty, I had no clue.  I guess there was that part of me that didn’t realize that it would hurt him.  Hell, he was the one who had wanted to do the damn thing to begin with… he’s the one who brought it out with that damn comic.  The other part of me knew, I just couldn’t get past my own pain at seeing it again to even realize that it would affect anyone else. 

I knew that us pushing it to the side, not talking about it could cause problems later on, but there’s a part of me that really didn’t care.  I didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t want to remember that night.  I remember when we were trying to get Justin to remember the events, that I had told him that I wish I could forget it.  I didn’t lie when I said that… it was probably the most honest thing I have ever said in my life.  I didn’t… don’t want to remember the way his head snapped back when the bat connected with his skull.  I don’t want to remember the sound that echoed throughout the parking garage. 

I don’t want to remember it, so I didn’t talk about it.  I don’t ever want to talk about it.  Maybe I should, for Justin’s sake if nothing else, but I don’t know if I can.  I guess there’s a part of me that didn’t realize that no one else would bring it up with him.  I would have thought that his mom, or Daphne would talk about it.  Hell, I thought that Deb would be doing something… if nothing else than trying to make Justin some ‘poster boy’ for gay rights. 

“I realized when I got here, what the main problem was.  It wasn’t the bashing really that I had a problem with.  I mean I did… but there was so much more to it than that.  It was the fact that I am missing days of my life.  I didn’t remember Emmett helping me get ready.  I didn’t remember the party for Michael.  I didn’t remember asking Daphne to the Prom.  I didn’t remember the dance.  I guess that I just couldn’t handle not remembering anymore.  I wanted those missing days back.  I wanted something besides those brief images I did have of Hobbs… of the attack,” he tells me. 

Yet another thing that I didn’t realize that he had a problem with.  Okay, so sue me.  We didn’t talk… maybe we should have, but we didn’t.  We never talked about that night after he remembered that little bit he did.  I guess I had just assumed when he remembered that part while we were at the Munchers for Gus’ party, that the rest of it would just come back to him as well.  I’m not a fucking doctor, so how was I supposed to know? All I knew was that things were okay.  Not great, but okay.  He was getting back on track, so why the hell should I bring it back up? 

Yeah, I’m an ass.  Fuck you. 

After he told me that, he fucking dropped the huge bomb on me.  He told me he was going through this whole regression thing.  He wanted to remember it… remember it all.  I was pissed to say the least.  Why the fuck would he want to do that?  Why in the hell would he want to do that… especially since he was doing it without someone there to tell him if he was remembering it right or not?  He should have at least had Daphne there with him. 

Of course he knew.  He knew that I wouldn’t like it, and I sure as hell don’t like it to this day.  Hell, look at what happened when he went and did something on his own.  When he tried to be a man.  The damn little shit.  I wonder why I even put up with him at times.  His whole ‘I think that it’s time for me to stand-up and take control of my life,’ shit only angered me even more. 

He kept going on and on about how he was some sort of ‘charity case’, and blame in the whole thing.  I flat out told him that we would never be able to agree on that… never.  I know that I am at least partly to blame for what happened.  Hell, I was the one who outted him at school that first day.  How the hell could he tell me that I had no blame at all?  What a bunch of bullshit. 

 “I’m glad that you came, Brian.  It was good to see you.  But you know how I’m needing things to be.  Think about it.  Whether we’re friends or lovers, it has to be because it’s what we both want.  It has to be because of something besides guilt.  I won’t deal with that anymore.  I’m tired.” 

I remember sitting there long after he had left.  I was pissed.  Totally and absolutely pissed.  How fucking dare he say that shit to me.  I was ready to just pack my bags and leave his sorry ass here.  Forget all about him.  I don’t even know what stopped me, but something did.  Something stopped me from getting in a taxi.  So as I went back to my room, I pulled out a pen and paper and went about putting all that shit that was going through my mind down on paper. 

I told him everything … well almost everything that I had going through my head.  The little shit.  ‘He was a liability?’ What the fuck was that shit? 

It was a couple of days later when I found myself sitting back at that same spot on the beach.  I had no idea if he would come, or not, but I had to be there.  I had to try and see if he had thought about what I had said.  I had told him to call, but he never did.  I can’t say though that I was surprised that he was there at the beach. 

We talked, for one of the first times since we had been together.  We started to clear up some of the shit that we had pushed off to the side for so long.  Of course I corrected him on some of his bullshit thinking.  ‘Charity case’.  Twat.  I may not know a lot about relationships, but I know enough that when one is weak the other compensates for the other’s fault.  Hence, Justin didn’t have money, I do… should have been end of story.  Yeah right. 

His getting his own place, is just another moment of him shoving that in my face.  Just another way that he’s  denying it at all.  His moving into Daphne’s… ‘being a man’ is just a huge slap in the face to me.  Yeah, he doesn’t realize it, but it’s true. 

Justin snaps me out of the past, but dropping a box on the floor beside bed.  “Are you going to help, or just sit there all day?” He asks me with a small smile on his face. 

Looking up at him, I just lean back on the bed that I somehow managed to squeeze my long body into.  Christ, this bed is going to be the first to go.  He better not expect me to fuck him in this thing.  I’d never be able to walk again.  “You want to be a man, you can do it all by yourself.” 

“Fucker,” he tells me throwing a pillow in my face.  I pulled the damn thing off and shoved it behind my head.  “You are such and ass at times.  I don’t know why I put up with you.” 

“It’s because of my wonderful personality.” I tell him relaxing as much as I can in this piece of shit.  I’ll just let him do the shit by himself, since he wants to be his OWN man.  He wanted it… well he’ll find out sooner or later that being grown up isn’t as fun as he’d like to think it is. 

Hell, if I had someone who was willing to take care of me when I was his age… someone who cared for me, then I might have jumped at the chance.  Then again, maybe not.  I don’t know if I’d take it or not, now that I think about it.  So maybe I’m not the best one to tell him what to do.  Maybe I would do the exact same thing that he is. 

I mean, my life was shit growing up, no doubt about that.  Living with the Warden and dear ol’ Jack wasn’t a walk in the park, but I can honestly say that at least I knew they didn’t want me.  Justin had a good life growing up.  He had the typical ‘high-class’ life that I had craved while growing up.  He had the life that many of the people I hung out with wanted.  The whole white picket fence, and shit like that.  WASP, just like Lindsey. 

I guess they prove that it’s not all fun and games in that type of life.  Being the child of the white-collar worker isn’t as great as we all wanted to believe. 

Of course, I don’t have any idea how a father could do what Craig did to Justin.  Jack may have been shit, but I knew where I stood.  He only touched me to beat the shit out of me.  He didn’t pretend to be anything but a piece of shit.  Unlike Craig, who pretended to be a loving father, one who wanted his son to be the best in everything, all the while destroying Justin. 

You don’t touch your kid that way.  You don’t do to a kid what he did to Justin. 

I remember when I was completely ignorant to the whole thing.  Hell, Mark – Justin’s shrink over there – told me that there was more going on then I realized.  He told me that I would have to be there for Justin when he was ready.  There’s that part of me that knew… I just knew, but I didn’t want to admit it.  There was no way that something like THAT could have happened to him.  No way in hell. 

Once again… I was so fucking wrong. 

When he finally admitted it to me, that night before I left – I don’t know what I was thinking.  I remember asking him about those sketches.  I remember wondering what could be bothering him.  All I knew was whatever was bothering him, that damn sketchbook held the answers. 

I left him there on the bed, the night before I was going to leave, and for some reason, I just had to look at those pictures again.  I don’t know what it was about them… what kept drawing me to them, but it did.  It was almost like it was screaming at me to figure it out.  He was upset of course when he found me sitting there with it, yet again, but I just couldn’t let it go.  I had to know what was really going on before I got on that plane. 

He went drama princess on me of course – yelling, screaming, threatening to leave… the whole nine fucking yards.  But I wasn’t going to drop this.  I wasn’t going to get on that damn plane until I knew the truth.  “Then fucking explain to me what the fuck is going on!” I remember yelling at him as I grabbed his arm.  I wasn’t going to drop it, I wouldn’t let him hide behind it.  I knew we had come too damn far, worked too damn much to let this ruin whatever we were. “I’m sure it can’t be as bad as what is going through my mind, Justin.”  I remember telling him. 

And fuck if I had known then… 

Maybe my thoughts were right on target.  I just didn’t want to believe it.  He told me that his therapy with Mark had brought something up… something that he didn’t remember until now.  Now, I had read about this regression therapy, but I didn’t believe it.  One, why would someone do that?  And two… it’s literally having someone go into your head and opening all the damn doors that are shut for a reason.  I believe that the reason why Justin isn’t able to remember the Prom is because he just can’t deal with it right now.  It’s our body’s way of protecting us.  I believe that. 

So why the fuck would we want to have someone open a damn door that shouldn’t be open?  When our body is telling us that we won’t be able to handle it. 

But he kept avoiding telling me.  He was hurting, that much I could tell.  And if there’s one thing that I can’t stand is him hurting.  For any reason.  I wanted to do something, but he wouldn’t let me.  So I kept pushing, and pushing.  Almost forcing him to tell me. 

Of course he wouldn’t let it slide completely.  The little shit.  “Fine, but if I’m going to do this.. you have to promise me some things first.”  He started on his list of rules.  I don’t know what it is with him and rules, but like the first set, I had all intention of keeping them.  If only he would just spit it out. 

So I agreed to keep my mouth shut until he finished.  I agreed to not comfort him.  I agreed to still get on the plane the next day.  I figured what the hell, those shouldn’t be too hard.  Right?  But when he asked me to not seek revenge… I knew that the shit had hit the fan.  Something BIG was up. 

I promised, albeit reluctantly.  But I promised none the less.  Well at least until I found out what the hell he was talking about. 

So he started to talk.  He talked about his dad, and some shit about how he finally knew why his dad had a huge problem with him being gay.  To say I was completely lost is an understatement.  But the farther he got in his explanation, the harder it was for him to say the words.  So he stopped talking and just threw his sketchbook at me.  “Those pictures are real… at least I think they are.  My da… Craig used to come into my room after Mom was asleep.  That book shows what I remember… if it’s true.  That’s what he … what I think he did.  That’s what I can’t say.” 

I remember sitting on that damn bed, looking at the sketches of a small boy, sitting in a dark room.  A room like any child would have, or at least one that I pictured a child of his statue would have.  But it was the look in the boy’s eyes.  The way the boy curled in around himself… holding himself tight.  It was the light from the door opening shining in on the young boys face.  It was the look in the older man’s eyes… I felt sick. 

And those weren’t the worst pictures either.  With every page I turned I could feel what Justin was feeling.  I was repulsed, sick, and damn fucking pissed.  I wanted to hurt… no fucking KILL Craig Taylor for what he had done. 

All I wanted to do was help Justin.  I didn’t know what I could do, but I was going to be dammed if I didn’t do SOMETHING! 

“No one can understand… no one knows.  Hell I don’t understand!  I don’t understand how the one person who I trusted with my life… who I loved unconditionally could do that!  I don’t understand how I could forget something as important as him fucking molesting me!  How could I try so hard to get him to accept me when he did that to me?!” 

Just hearing him say the words… the words that fucking school teachers, psychologists and fuck all came up with for that act… it killed a small part of me.  It really did.  Molest.  Such a small word for such a fucked up, shit all act. 

A part of me could understand Justin’s reluctance to want to talk about it.  I could understand, because I don’t really talk about what Jack did to me.  And that was NOTHING compared to what that asshole Craig did to Justin.  Nothing! 

I had never broken a promise before in my life, but I knew.  I just fucking knew. 

I knew, as I held Justin crying in my arms that night – I fucking knew that there was one promise I couldn’t keep. 

I couldn’t stay out of it.  I wouldn’t. 

I wouldn’t let Craig Taylor live another day of his life, without knowing what a fuck-up he was.  I wasn’t going to let Justin live with the thought that Dear ol’ dad could be doing the same thing to his sister. 

I wasn’t going to live another day without making Craig Taylor pay… and pay big. 

He owed Justin that.  He owed Justin a hell of a lot more than what I plan on doing to him. 

And I have every intention of making that shit pay. 

Cause I don’t have the answer that Justin is looking for, and it tears me up inside. 

I can’t tell him why. 

“Well, I think that’s everything.” Justin told me as he come to lay down beside me on the small bed.  “I’m fucking exhausted.” 

I pull Justin to me, and run my hand up and down his back.  “So what now?” I ask him.  That’s’ something that I guess has been bothering me.  I have no idea what was going to happen now.  I have no idea where we were going to go from here. 

Justin placed his head on my chest and grabbed my hand.  I just watched him as he linked his fingers with mine.  It still amazes me, he still amazes me.  I think back to our shared past, and I still can’t believe that we’re still together.  Granted I was kicking and screaming the entire way, but for some reason, I don’t mind.  I feel content, I guess that’s what you would call it.  I like having him around.  A part of me always did. 

From that first night that I brought him home and fucked him, I knew that there was something about him.  Something that was different.  I knew _he_ was different.  It has never been easy between us, but for some reason, we’ve worked through it.  We’re still together.  Me, the one who never believed in love or boyfriends has had one for the past three years.  Fuck! 

Not that I’m complaining.  Well not much really.  I guess I lucked out – or got lucky whichever way you look at it – in finding Justin.  We compliment each other in so many ways.  Life with Justin is never boring.  That’s for damn sure. 

I hear Justin take a deep sigh.  “School starts back up next week.  I have five classes scheduled.  Plus I have to get with Deb about my job at the Diner.  I need to see if I still have a job, or if I have to look for another one.  Plus I have to talk to Michael about Rage.”  Justin informed me.  I could almost see him mentally counting them off in his head.  “I should try and find another therapist, but I don’t know about that yet.” 

“You should.” I tell him gripping his hand tighter in mine.  “You have a lot of shit going on.  You should be able to talk to someone about it.  Especially now that you’ve talked to your mom and … Craig.” I tell him using his ‘father’s’ real name.  Neither one of us will call him anything but that.  Well anything nice that is. 

“Yeah, maybe.” He says as he curls himself closer to me.  It pains me that he needs the constant closeness.  He won’t say anything, but I can tell that he needs something – he needs to feel connected to something… someone.  I’m just grateful that it’s me he’s turning to. 

Of course he knew what I did when I came back the first time from seeing him over in Italy… I don’t even want to know.  I had never broken a promise before in my life… I had always prided myself on keeping my word.  It was the one thing everyone could count on – my almost brutal honesty and my word.  But after seeing Justin break down the night before I left, I knew that it was one promise I wouldn’t be able to keep. 

So when I got off the plane, I told myself that I would just wait and see.  I didn’t want to break my word, but I also know myself well enough to know that I never should have said yes to Justin.  I told myself that the promise was made under duress; since I didn’t have all the facts at the time I made it.  I couldn’t be held responsible if I just happened to be at the same place at the same time as that asshole.   
Sounds good right?  I thought so. 

I knew however, that Justin wouldn’t buy that argument.  So I didn’t tell him. 

It had taken me two days before I finally broke down and decided that a little confrontation was what I needed to do.  Not for Justin, but for myself.  Okay, so it was for Justin.  I didn’t want that asshole anywhere near Justin.  Plus I wanted to see for myself – ease my own mind – how he was treating Molly. 

See even though she is a little annoying, I like the twerp.  She’s Justin’s sister, and she’s a hell of a lot better than Claire.  I was just afraid that if he had done this to Justin, that he would try something with her.  I knew that no one else would do a damn thing about it.  Justin – as much as I know he would want to do something, as much as I care about him – I know that he won’t be able to deal with that crap after he comes face to face with Craig. 

No, knowing Justin the way I do… he wouldn’t be able to say much of anything after he ‘confronts’ Craig about what he remembers.  Justin would not be able to handle much of anything – he’d shut down.  Yeah, he’d be pissed, but it would be a complete shock to his system. 

So, I did the only thing that could be done.  I got into the ‘Vette, and started to follow the fucker around.  I can tell you where he eats for lunch, where he goes to fuck his secretary, which sex club he goes to late at night when his live-in lover is asleep.  The fucker.  And everyone says that I’m an asshole.  Craig Taylor is the epitome of ‘right’… bullfuckingshit. 

I did this for a week, mind you, and I decided it was time to have a little talk with the fucker.  Of course talking to Justin that day made my decision to move forward a hell of a lot easier. 

That was one of the most painful conversations I had ever had with him.  Mainly, because I couldn’t touch him, hold him.  He was so fucking far away and hurting so much.  I wanted to rip Craig Taylor’s nuts off and shove them so far down his throat so I could pull them out his ass.  Death was too good for him. 

“Hey, how’s sunshiny Italy?” I asked him when I picked up the phone. 

“It’s alright, I guess.  Just finishing up the last of my projects.  Keeping busy,  you know.” He told me, and I knew immediately that something was wrong.  “I… I can’t stop thinking about it, Bri.” 

I could hear the pain in his voice and I cursed the very existence of ‘Daddy Taylor’.  “Did you remember something else?” I asked him.  I knew better than try to tell him to forget it.  I did that with the bashing, and I’m seeing how much of a mistake that was now.  I see how much him NOT talking about that night has hurt him.  Just look at why we even separated, and why things are so messed up between us now. 

Yeah, things are good, but Justin is feeling he needs to ‘take care of himself’.  He thinks that he can’t depend on others to take care of him – understand him.  So in a way I can understand.  I’ve been there myself.  We are all partly to blame for his current idea on what he needs to do. 

“Some.” I hear Justin say, and all I want to do is hold him close to me… reach across the fucking ocean and have him there in the loft, safe and sound.  “But, I don’t want to think about it.” 

“Justin,” I warn him.  As I said… I couldn’t let him NOT think about it.  I had to get him to open up, and let it out.  No matter what it did to me, he had to get it all out before it destroyed him.  “Tell me.” 

I could almost hear Justin argue with himself on whether or not he should tell me.  I could hear his breathing, and I remember wanting to reach across the phone and hold him close to me.  I didn’t know what I could do, but I knew that I wanted to do SOMEDAMNTHING to try and help him. 

“I remember one night.  I don’t know, I was maybe… five, six.  I don’t remember really.  But I remember we had just come back from this dinner or something at the country club.”  I heard Justin laugh slightly, I knew he was shaking his head.  “I remember that there was some talk about me not being in sports, and dad kept trying to get me to try out for the club’s baseball team or something.” 

I tried to break the ice a little, cause I knew where this was going.  I just knew.  “I could just see you out there in those tight little pants.  You’re bubble butt sticking out as you bend to pick up the ball.” 

”Yeah, I’m sure that would get some notice.” He said with a small laugh.  “I might have gotten laid a little sooner than 17.” 

“But it wouldn’t have been as good.” I tell him.  And it’s true… at least that’s what my ego says.  I may pretend that I don’t remember that night, but what I do remember… fuck, it was hot.  It was that night that made me want more.  My little nympho. 

“So true.” I hear him.  He sighs and lets it out slowly.  “Anyway, when we got home, mom and dad started arguing.  Mom kept telling him that it was okay, that just because I wasn’t in sports it didn’t mean anything.  I had my art and they should be encouraging it.  He kept going on and on about how it wasn’t normal.” 

I could only shake my head.  The whole ‘Justin isn’t normal’ crap started early.  It’s something that I had never understood, you know.  I don’t understand why someone would believe that you are only a man if you play sports.  How many men are there who turn out to be some very successful ‘straight’ man without having to play sports while growing up?  A hell of a lot, I’m sure. 

“I went up to my room, I guess I didn’t want to hear them fight over me.  I don’t really know.  Maybe they told me to go up to bed.  I was asleep when he came that night.  He told me that I would be a man, that he wouldn’t let me embarrass him in front of his friends.  He wasn’t going to have a sissy little faggot.”  He laughed, the pain etched in his voice. 

Justin told me how his father went on to ‘show him’ how to be a man that night.  And fuck all if I didn’t want to have Craig Taylor in front of me so I could show him what being a man was.  The thought of that asshole touching Justin, touching him in ways that I know he now will wither in ecstasy.. begging me to make him cum.  He had made something so wonderful, so fucking hot, and turned it into something completely disgusting. 

I wanted to kill him.  I wanted to show him what it was to be a man, and be embarrassed.  If I could do to him what he did to Justin… 

Nahh.  I don’t want to catch something. 

So what’s a man supposed to do?  What is a father supposed to do, when he finds out that a child is victimized?  What do I do when I find out that the one person I can be with has been treated like this? 

Well the only thing I can do… confront the fucker who hurt that person.  I would do the same if it was Mikey, or Lindsey, or Gus.  Hell, I might even do it if it was Ted… well maybe not.  The point is when I made the promise, I didn’t have all the details, so I can’t be held responsible for any action that I may do. 

Right? 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  That’s all I can say. 

So after following the fucker around for a while, I finally decided it was time.  So when he was at that little club, bar… whatever, I knew it was my chance.  If anyone ever asked me if I went to a straight strip club, I would deny it until the day I die.  Me, King of Liberty fucking Avenue at a titty bar.  I’d never live it down. 

The things people do for… whatever you call what I feel for Justin. 

Love?  I don’t know, but it’s something that makes me do stupid shit. 

As I made my way over to the table where dear ol’ Craig was sitting at, I tried not to vomit.  Just being in a place like this makes me so glad that I like dick.  I can honestly say that I had never had so many women try to get into my pants as I did just walking the few feet over to that table.  It’s disgusting. 

Anyway, when I reach the table, I see Craig talking with a group of his ‘friends’, and I just stand there behind him.  The idiot didn’t even know that something was wrong.  He never once realized that his friends had stopped laughing at whatever he passes as a joke.  Can we say stupid? 

I didn’t even blink as I picked him up and slammed him down on top of the table face first.  I put my forearm on his neck, while the other one is twisting his arm behind his back.  I remember ignoring the screams from everyone in the damn place, cause I didn’t really care.  Let them call the cops.  What did I care at that moment? 

“You stupid piece of shit.” I hissed into his ear.  He kept trying to break free, cursing at me – damming me to hell and all that shit, but I didn’t even hear him.  “You think you got away with it, don’t you?  You think that Justin forgot about it?  How you used to come into his room when he was a little boy?  How you used to play little games with him?  You touch me, I’ll touch you.  I will show you how to be a man.  Real men do what their daddy’s tell them.  I will show you how to please someone, how someone should please you.  It’s what a man should know.” 

I could almost see the shocked faces on the others at the table.  Luckily for them, none of them tried to stop me.  I had everyone’s attention in the damn place, and I was going to let them all know what type of man they were associating with.  “For years, you played  your little game.  You told him that that’s what little boys should do for their daddy’s.  Especially if they loved them.  Am I close? Do your friends know that you’re a child molester?  Do they let you near their children?  Do you show your affection for Molly the way you did Justin?” 

I finally let the fucker up, and he looked right at me.  I feel a little bit of satisfaction at the looks he was getting from his friends.  “You’re lying.  You don’t know a thing.  I never touched Justin.  I don’t know what lies you have been telling him, or what you made him believe, but you don’t know me.  You’re the pedophile.  You’re the disgusting piece of shit.” 

I smile slightly and shake my head.  “Justin was at least of age when I fucked him.  I didn’t take advantage of him, or do anything to him that he didn’t want done.  You on the other hand… well touching a child, doing what you did.”  I moved closer to him, got right in his face.  “I would never do to my son, what you did to yours.  I would NEVER even THINK about something like that.  You call me a pedophile, but at least I’m not a sorry sack of shit like you.” 

With that I turned away and left that ‘fine’ establishment.  I think my work there was done… I only wish I had been a fly on the wall after that.  I sure as hell embarrassed him this time.  Only it wasn’t Justin who embarrassed him.  Fucker! 

“What are you thinking about?” Justin asks me from his spot on my chest. 

I look down at his blue eyes as they bear into my soul.  It’s like he can read my thoughts, and frankly that scares the shit out of me.  Granted not as much as before, but it’s still scary knowing that someone can tell when you’re full of shit or not.  “Just thinking about stuff.” I tell him.  There is no way in hell I’m going to tell him that I saw Craig.  That’s one secret I will never tell. 

Justin only nods, knowing that I don’t want to talk about it.  That’s the thing, I think I like the most about him.  He knows when to drop something and when to push.  Granted it may not always be what I think it should be, but it’s nice in a way.  I don’t have to explain myself to him.  He always knows what’s going on.  How?  I have no idea, but he does.  “Lindsey called yesterday.” I tell him, completely changing the subject. 

Or maybe not.  Maybe – for me at least – finding out what an ass Craig Taylor is as a father.  Maybe I realize what type of father I want to be to Gus.  I never want my son to feel the way about me that ether I felt for Jack, or Justin feels about Craig.  Just maybe I want to be a good father.  Someone should in our fucked up family.  “Her and Mel wanted to go out tonight, and wanted to know if I could watch Gus for the weekend.  So what do you say?  Feel up to helping me watch the kid?” 

Justin smiled – the first real smile I have seen on his lips since this whole mess started.  God, I have missed that smile.  “A weekend with you and Gus?  I don’t know… I just moved in here… I really should…” 

I didn’t let him finish, I just began to attack his mouth.  I know he’ll stay with me this weekend.  Of that I have no doubt.  Justin loves Gus, and is a much better father than I am that’s for sure.  He would do anything for that kid. 

I may not be the best damn father in the world, but I know that I’m a hell of a lot better than Craig Taylor or Jack Kinney. 

It’s almost funny how – if you really think about it – both Justin and I are so fucked up in the ‘parent’ department, but yet we’re fathers to Gus.  And yes… Justin is Gus’ other dad.  It may not be official or any of that shit – may never be – but he is.  In my mind he is.  He’s cared for Gus, been there for my son.   He’s been a father to Gus in everyway that counts. 

Love. 

Justin loves Gus, and Gus sure as fuck loves Justin. 

It’s a hell of a lot more then either one of us had gotten from our own old man. 

It amazes me that despite our fucked up pasts, we can still be together.  Dare I say love?  Hell, I don’t know.  I know I have never felt this way about someone before, and I don’t ever want him to leave again.  But is it love?  You tell me. 

All I know is that I’m going to be there for him when and if he needs me.  That’s the best I can do.  So many people have let him down, let me down.  Maybe we need to be there for each other.  Help each other feel something besides complete emptiness.  Feel something besides worthlessness. 

Maybe that’s love. 

If it is… I know I don’t want to change it. 

If that’s love… then I’m in love with Justin.  More than anyone else in my life. 

If it’s not… then let me be dammed, like my mother believes I am.  And in my opinion, cause you know it’s the only one that really maters – it’s jackasses like Craig and Jack who belong there. 

Cause all I know… I’m having a hell of a great time trying to figure it out. 

I wonder if I could go there and make sure they suffer for all eternity.  Justin and I can be in charge of hell.  Yeah, that sounds right for some reason. 

Why does hell seem so much like heaven? 

Fuck if I know, but I wouldn’t change a damn thing. 

So for a week we had a great time.  Neither one of us brought up any of that shit.  You can say that we ignored it, that we were in denial, but it worked for us. 

One fucking week was all we got before all hell broke loose.  One week before real life came and slapped the shit out of us. 

Why can’t we ever get a damn break? 

Can anyone explain that to me? 

Is it too much to ask? 


End file.
